Chapter 8

“Son of a bitch.”

Fleer and Aaron stood at the crest of the rise, the same one over which the Gryphon had made its entrance into town. They had seen the smoke from far off; still, the scene of devastation before them was like a physical blow. Not a single building remained intact; many were burned flat, or like Marty’s Diner, still visibly burning. The one piece of fire equipment the town had possessed--an old pumper built back in the forties--was presumably buried amidst the wreckage of the burnt-out garage, where it was housed. The few survivors Aaron could see, milled about the outskirts, afraid to get too close. There was no sign of the Gryphon.

“Does this damn thing breathe fire as well as shoot lightning?” Fleer wanted to know.

“It wouldn’t have to.” Aaron pointed to the remains of the propane and gasoline storage tanks. “It had its own, readymade flamethrower.”

As they approached, Aaron made out the figure of Clement Steed, sitting out of the driver’s side door of his 4X, head down and hands clasped loosely between his knees. He appeared to be praying. Aaron hurried across the parking lot and put his hand on the big man’s shoulder.

“The thing? Is it still alive? Where did it go?”

The Sheriff looked up, eyes dull, face haggard. “It’s gone,” he muttered. “Took off.” He pointed east. “That way, towards Provo.”

“East?” Aaron shaded his eyes against the afternoon glare. He could see nothing. “I need your truck, Sheriff. I gotta get to Provo. There’s a plane waiting for me there.” He turned to Fleer. “You’re coming with me.”

Fleer looked up, startled. “I am?”

“You are. Now let’s get a move on.” He assisted the Sheriff to his feet. Steed handed the keys over without comment, began to remove the shotgun from the front seat, thought better of it, then shook both men’s hands in goodbye. He headed for a small group of men and women poking around the remains of the general store.

As the two men climbed into the commandeered 4X, Fleer inquired of Aaron: “You’re going up in the air? With that thing around?”

Aaron started the engine. “Want to take your chances on the ground?”

Fleer looked out over the ruined town. “I see your point.”

FORT TUSCARORA - MASSACHUSETTS - CONTROL ROOM

Pandemonium had broken out. Jill, Admiral Benedek, Ed Moore; all stood at the glass wall separating the control room from the holding tank. Rivulets of water streaked the glass; drops fell from the grid-work of pipes and electrical conduits just above it. Each time the great beast thrashed about in the tank; water broke across the windows. And the thrashing was growing worse.

“The fluid isn’t working,” Ed yelled, barely audible over one of the creature’s bellows. “It’s just the grid holding him now.” As if to emphasize this, Gojira bucked upward against the wire mesh, releasing a firestorm of sparks. “And it seems to have lost its flammability, too. Is it degrading, you think?”

Jill didn’t know. Exposed to the atmosphere, she supposed it would eventually start to degrade; all chemicals do when exposed to air. But how could the damned creature survive 60,000 volts of raw electricity--the maximum output of the generators, enough to fry a herd of elephants? She was about to voice this question when a technician monitoring news reports called out: “Dr. Llewellyn? I think you had better see this.”

Jill hurried over to see a shaky, hand-held image of an immense winged-creature--almost the size of Godzilla--shot through the rear window of a speeding car. As she watched, the creature leaned forward and somehow blasted apart a long oblong propane tank, which in turn ignited a circular gasoline storage tank right beside it. The twin whomps of powerful explosions made the image blur badly; when it settled down again, Jill watched in horror as a woman in a pink and white-striped waitress uniform inexplicably walked directly into the flames and become engulfed in them. “Oh, my God,” she said, turning away.

Benedek stared at the repeating images, stone-faced, his jaw muscles bulging.

Ed Moore said: “We seem to have another creature, Jill. I guess Aaron was right.”

Benedek muttered, “Jesus Christ,” as Fox News again ran the footage of the burning waitress.

A technician broke in: “Dr. Llewellyn? Mr. Vaught is on the line.”

Jill gestured toward the main speaker. Through the crackle of static and the background roar of jet engines, Aaron’s voice came across barely discernable. “---creature has wings like a bat. The body of a lion, like the mythical ... fire ... what seem to be electric bolts--”

“Like a Goddamned eel,” a stranger’s gruff voice cut in.

Jill leaned close to the mike. “Aaron? Where is it headed? Can you see it now?”

Aaron’s voice came back, obviously strained. “--in the cockpit, looking right at the damned thing. It’s about ... but we’re gaining on it. The compass heading is ... repeat, sixty-six degrees--east-northeast. I think it’s headed for you, Jill.”

Jill stepped back, expression taut. “How fast is it going?”

A pause. “About three hundred miles an hour.”

A low whistle from behind her. “Aaron, you have to get back here as soon as you can,” she said.

“No shit,” Aaron agreed. The static had cleared, leaving only the engine roar in the background. “Be there in about two hours. Vaught out.”

As though having heard the conversation--and understanding it--the huge beast in the holding tank gave a thunderous roar, shaking the control room and everything in it.

“My, God!” Ed Moore exclaimed. He ran for the glass partition, and out the door, began yelling at the technicians along the walkway to evacuate. Overhead, sparks from the grid-work rained down like a summer cloudburst. He protected himself with one upraised arm, backing his way back in the door. Enraged, Gojira again and again threw himself against the cables.

“The grid can’t take this!” one of the technician’s yelled. He had stood up and was frantically adjusting dials on his console. On Gojira’s very next assault, the grid above his neck and shoulders caught in his dorsal fins and was torn loose from the trusses overhead. It ceased throwing sparks. Worse, Jill could see on one of the exterior cameras that the tip of Gojira’s tail had broken free, and with each violent sideways motion, tore loose another set of restraints. Soon it was free all along its length and sweeping aside parked cars, lighting poles, transformer boxes, anything it encountered. Suddenly the tail disappeared, and Jill had a terrible premonition. “Get down!” she screamed.

An instant later the roof structure over the holding tank imploded, tearing apart trusses, support columns, the framework supporting the grid-work, and then the grids themselves. The tip of the tail smashed through the glass partition and took out everything in one quick swipe, missing Jill, and the others only because they were flat on the floor. Then it was gone.

Jill raised her head. Klaxons were sounding everywhere. Most of the roof above the holding tank had been torn away, jagged pieces of metal roofing hanging askew from the edges. As she watched, one broke free and plummeted into the empty holding tank. Only Gojira’s tail remained visible now, swinging angrily back and forth above the building. Then the beast roared defiantly and stomped away, every step a massive concussion that shook the earth.

“Are you all right?” Ed Moore asked.

Jill looked over to see her fellow scientist lying beside her on the floor, a broken ceiling tile on his back, dust coating his thin hair, his wire-frame glasses awry. “I’m fine,” she said, pushing onto her knees. “Godzilla escaped.”

“I see that. Any guesses where he’s headed?”

Jill stood and brushed herself off. A cut on her forehead bled into her left eyebrow, and the back of her right hand was badly scratched, other than that, she seemed okay. “I have a good idea, yes,” she said.

Stepping over the two-foot-tall remnants of the partition wall, she walked along the holding tank to the new entrance created by the departing creature, then out into the parking lot. Gojira was perhaps two hundred yards away, stopped momentarily as it watched two Abrams M1-A1 tanks fire projectiles its way. The impacts had little noticeable effect, other than irritate the beast. After a moment it shook its head, as though thoroughly disgusted, and lumbered away. Finally, Jill noticed the shiny silver tank, still connected to the back of the creature’s neck. The realization came that the men in the Abrams tanks--perhaps everyone onsite--owed their continued existence to the device. If she was correct, the amniotic fluid still being dispensed by the tank suppressed the creature’s ability to breath fire, if not immobilize it anymore. That was something, at least.

“It’s headed for Buzzard’s Bay,” Ed Moore said. He stood beside her, removing particles of debris from his disheveled hair. Admiral Benedek joined her on the other side, brushing dust off his suit jacket. “It’ll head for the sound,” he added.

When the creature reached the water’s edge, it looked back in the direction of the base and for one moment, Jill would swear it looked directly at her. Then it dropped to all fours and like the world’s largest alligator, slipped into the water and disappeared.

Ed Moore stood hunched over a monitor, talking to a technician monitoring Navy and Coast Guard broadcasts. He looked up, trying to catch Jill’s eye. The wrecked control room had necessitated moving their operations to the Situation Room, buried in the heart of the big building. The room was twice as large as the control room, however, and the equipment laid out in an odd, L-shaped array; Jill and Benedek were somewhere around the corner of the L. Moore hurried off to find them.

“Dr. Llewellyn? Jill?” He spotted her halfway down the aisle, speaking in hushed tones to Admiral Benedek. Both looked up at the sound of his voice. He waited to speak until he had reached them.

“Godzilla’s been sighted. He’s moving down Long Island Sound, south of Bridgeport.”

Jill exchanged a look with the Admiral. “Given their relative speeds, where will they meet, Ed?”

Ed Moore was clearly worried. “The technician’s calculating it now, but all indications are it’s going to be very close to New York City. Possibly even the tip of Manhattan Island,” he said, his expression growing pinched.

On a large screen affixed to the ceiling, two lines projecting the course of both creatures had their paths intersecting just south of Liberty Island. Jill raised her right hand to point and was about to speak when Aaron, red-faced and out of breath, accompanied by a stranger, came rushing up to them. “Jesus,” he said. “What happened out there?”

Jill said simply, “He left.”

“I can see that. Damned good thing too. Gojira’s genetically programmed to find that thing and kill it.” He pointed to the projected path of the Gryphon. “If it had caught Gojira here...” Still puffing, he shrugged. “How’s Marty?”

Jill slowly shook her head. “I’m sorry, Aaron. He explained everything before he died if that’s any consolation.”

Aaron looked suddenly defeated. He spotted a chair temporarily left vacant by a technician and sat down heavily in it. He tried to catch his breath. “I suspected as much,” he said wiping away tears from his eyes. “But still...”

Jill reached out, and after a moment’s hesitation, placed her hand on his shoulder. Aaron looked up, smiled sadly, and placed his hand over hers and squeezed it. “Thanks,” he said gratefully. Then he looked again at the projected paths of the two monsters. After a moment his eyes widened. “Wait a minute. Isn’t Tina...”

Jill spun around and stared at the screen, open-mouthed with shock. “Tina!” she cried. “Tina’s in the city!” She released Aaron’s shoulder and clutched at Benedek’s right arm. “My daughter! She’s in Greenwich Village at my sister’s place. You have to get her out!”

Benedek blinked in surprise, then slowly shook his head. “It’s too late to evacuate, Jill. I doubt I could even get a rescue team in to find her, not in time. She’s better off staying where she is.”

The stranger spoke up. “You’re not going to warn them? Give people a chance to--”

Benedek cut him off. “An evacuation order right now would kill more people than it would save. Look at that,” he said gruffly, pointing to the overhead display. “Those paths intersect in less than fifteen minutes. We warn people now, there’ll be millions crowding the bridges and, in the streets, when the creatures arrive. You want half the population served up as hot lunch?”

“Admiral!” Jill yelled. “Tina’s in there!”

Benedek shook his head. “Sorry, Jill. Get her on the phone and tell her to get herself down into the basement of the building and stay there.”

Jill promptly spun about and headed for the nearest telephone. She punched in a number and held the receiver to her ear, arms clutched to her chest and foot tapping impatiently. “Come on, come on,” she hissed. Then she slammed down the receiver. “It’s busy. I’m going myself,” she said harshly, heading for the door.

Benedek called after her, “Doctor Llewellyn! Don’t be a fool. You can’t--”

“I have to get my daughter!” she yelled back. She slammed through the door and continued down the corridor, leaving Benedek, Aaron, Ed Moore and Nelson Fleer staring after her.

Aaron looked up at Benedek. “I guess that leaves you in charge of the project, Admiral.” He stood up. “My advice is you evacuate the city.”

“I agree,” Fleer seconded.

Benedek, still un-introduced to the Utah native, scowled at him. “And you are?”

Fleer introduced himself. “I’ve seen what that creature can do,” he said, indicating the course of the Gryphon. “Warning or no warning, its gonna do as much damage as humanly--non-humanly--possible. At least give them a chance.”

Aaron nodded in agreement. “If nothing else, send everyone into the subway system. They probably have a better chance down there than on the streets or up in a tall building.”

Benedek nodded dourly. He turned and reluctantly gave the order to evacuate.

GREENWICH VILLAGE - THE APARTMENT OF JULIA FREEMONT

Tina was scared. She banged futility on the buttons of the telephone. Each attempt resulted in the same message advising her: “Sorry, all circuits are currently busy. Please try your phone call again later,” in a maddeningly cheerful voice. On the television before her a CNN news bulletin showed the now, all too familiar footage of the Gryphon destroying the town of Traveller, Utah.

“We repeat,” the announcer said excitedly, “our most current projection of the monster’s flight path has it reaching New York City in less than fifteen minutes. All citizens are advised by the military to seek shelter in the local subway system, or if one is not locally available to you, taking shelter in the basement of a building or in any low structure that can be easily exited in the event of an emergency. Our sources advise us that all bridges and tunnels out of the city will be closed to pedestrian and vehicular traffic. Do not go out into the streets or attempt to exit the city via car or other vehicle.”

Load shouting and the sound of blaring horns from the street outside informed Tina that this advice was being widely ignored by the populace. She got up, and bringing the telephone with her, went to look out the window. Below her, the street was totally blocked by fleeing cars, yellow taxis, delivery vans, motorcycles and every other kind of vehicle normally seen on a New York City street-including bicycles ridden by panicked-looking riders. Two ambulances with lights flashing waited futilely to get through. One of the ambulances, Tina noticed, had a smashed-out driver’s-side window and a man behind the wheel--currently hanging out the window and shouting obscenities at the log-jammed traffic before him--who looked anything but what she imagined an ambulance driver or paramedic to look. Rather than any recognizable uniform, the man wore a red bandana around his head and a studded, black leather jacket. He wore black leather gloves with the fingers cut off. She suspected he was a gang member.

Across the street, looters streamed in and out of a corner grocery. A young Chicano, watching the looters with undisguised interest, grabbed a metal trash can off the sidewalk, lofted it above his head and smashed out the plate glass window of the store beside the grocery, an electronics store. People streaming out of the grocery store now detoured into the electronics store as well. The young Chicano, beaming proudly, looked around and seemed to find something interesting on the other side--Tina’s side--of the street. He crossed carefully between the stalled cars, sometimes having to scramble over the bumpers because the vehicles were so close together and disappeared from sight onto the sidewalk below.

Tina put down the telephone, wrestled the lower half of the window into an open position and stuck out her head. Below her, the young Chicano had a purse in his hand and was rummaging through it. Beside him, kneeling on the stoop was a woman in a stodgy-looking floral-print dress, hands to her chest and appearing to be intently praying. The young man looked at her in disgust, said something Tina could not make out, threw her purse down beside the woman and stomped away. The woman, if she had noticed either the man or his ransacking of her purse, gave no indication of it. She just went on praying.