The Bone Hunter, page 11
The massive body of the Bone Hunter lifted into the air as it broke open into four sharp folds on one end around its mouth. The pink patches on its sides were open again as the beast slammed back to the ground and flopped like a fish out of water or a wounded snake.
It turned away from her and raced along the ground toward the drop off even with its body split in multiple places. It cleared the edge and landed on the other side still racing forward.
Allison rounded the end of the ravine and turned back toward the Bone Hunter’s path. She followed the line with her eyes out toward the dark smoke rising in the distance beyond the trees. She began to let off the throttle and roll to a stop.
“It’s following the fire,” she said. “Is that the direction of the village?”
“You have to get there first with the explosives,” Brood said next to her ear as he leaned on her back.
“I have half as much as it just took to its face, and I can’t go faster than it.”
“Leave me,” he said.
“No. Stop it. I need to treat your wounds.”
“Follow along the lake,” he said. “We’ll get ahead of it. Blast it open before it heals and get it into the water.”
“Brood, you’re hurt bad.”
“I’ll make it,” he said. “We need to save everyone else.”
Allison closed her hand on the throttle, and went straight for the closest shore of Lake Eyasi, instead of through the forest and mountains after the Bone Hunter directly. She was not sure those obstacles would mean much to it, but she had to try.
She bounded down off the raised ground and kicked up sand as she steered between the dunes. Allison reached the hard packed sand and raced along the water’s edge toward the village. She made hard turns to swerve around logs and large pieces of drift-wood.
Above her, in the hills, she saw the burnt spires of trees where the fire from the armory/lab, the plane crash, or both had caused devastation. She was not sure how much habitat had been destroyed, but that was for another time.
She leaned up in the seat. “Hold on, Brood, we’re almost there. You were right.”
Hadazabe and the missionaries ran from the lake with buckets of water, as the leading edge of the fire in the brush threatened what remained of the village. Children, including the Gaskin kids, sat in boats a few feet out from the bank. On the fishing boats that had motors, the outboard motors were lifted up out of the water as the children watched the fight against the fire in terror.
Allison made the turn and stopped just shy of the shell of the church building. She climbed off with the engine still running and eased Brood to the ground.
She shouted, “Bring me something to … Brood?”
The bloody head dressing had slid down to his waist, exposing his wounds again. He stared glazed and blank up at the sky. His lips were pasted together in an unnatural shape from the blood he had coughed up. His skin was waxy and strange from sweat, and the cold settling of death.
Allison looked up and saw John, Mark, and Mposi standing over her staring down at Brood Kultha’s body.
Mposi asked, “Did you destroy the monster?”
“He lied to me,” Allison said. “He said he would make it.”
“What do we need to do?” Mark asked. “Is it still out there?”
Flame burst up into the sky as the Bone Hunter blasted through the brush and back into the village. Raw spots of pink and white still marked its skin, even though the split around its mouth had mostly healed. The villagers dropped their buckets and fled. Some plunged out into the water.
The creature splashed in the mud left behind by the dropped buckets and steam sizzled off its skin.
“Water in the wounds,” Allison said. She lifted the container of explosives out of the basket. “We need to wound it and get water in the wounds.”
“What is that?” Mposi pointed.
Allison shrugged. “Kind of like C-Four. I want to cram this down its throat.”
John brought his gun up and started firing. Mark stepped in beside him. Mposi retrieved his rifle from Brood’s body.
“Can I help?” David Gaskin called from Allison’s side.
“Keep the villagers away.”
“They are already away,” he said. “What else?”
Allison shook her head. “We need to run this explosive into that thing’s throat.”
David took his belt out of the loops. “We can tie down the throttle on this four-wheeler.”
Allison put the explosive back into the basket, as David looped his belt over the handle bar, and waited.
The monster rolled and whipped its steaming body around. One of its spines sliced John’s calf, and he went down. The beast writhed back, and then twisted toward John again. Mark grabbed John’s collar and dragged him backward away from the creature’s body.
“Now,” Allison said.
David pulled the belt taut, and the ATV lurched forward toward the creature. Allison stared at the box on the back and thought it might not be enough. She lifted her rifle and fired on the box. Holes punched into the body of the vehicle and sparked off the metal.
The Bone Hunter screeched and turned away from the ATV.
Allison narrowed her eyes. “Do you remember the pain from the other one?”
As it propelled itself away, its spines sliced along the front of the vehicle—taking off the wheels. The ATV tipped over, and the box spilled out on the ground. Allison held her breath, but nothing happened.
The monster flopped at the water’s edge, and the children in the boats a few feet away screamed.
Mark ran up and scooped the box into his arms.
Allison showed her teeth. “Mark, be careful.”
He ran down to the monster and threw it. Mark turned to run, but the Bone Hunter whipped around and slashed across his back. His eyes went wide, and he fell on his face.
“Mark!”
The explosion sprayed water up into the air and sloshed the boats out farther in the lake. David and Allison fell to their backs.
Mposi and Fatma helped them up.
Molly ran up and hugged David.
Steam boiled up from the open, deflated body of the monster.
As Allison watched, the white gut re-inflated, and the red flesh began to zip. “We have to drag it out into the lake.”
Mposi shook his head. “Those spines are too sharp, Allison.”
“It’s healing right now.”
A harpoon attached to a thin line fired from one of the boats and stabbed into the creature. They tied it off and blasted the motor. The boat tilted up and water frothed around the blades of the motor, but the monster’s body did not budge. The line held, but the harpoon pulled loose of its flesh causing the boat to propel away from the shore.
“Any other ideas?” Allison whispered.
Four more harpoons on lines plunged into the beast. The engines roared, and the lines pulled taut. The Bone Hunter moved a few inches closer to the water, but then stopped.
Allison saw the slices through the sand along its side where it had moved. “The footprints of a god.”
She ran down into the water and grabbed one of the lines to pull. It was hopeless, but she did not know what else to do. David, Molly, Mposi, and Fatma joined her. Other villagers gathered in the water and pulled the lines.
The Bone Hunter slid and kept coming. It hit the water, and the lake boiled around it.
“Get clear,” Allison shouted.
People dashed away in both directions. The boats kept dragging it out deeper. The monster’s open body writhed, and then sunk. The boats tilted up at their noses. Three of the boats cut their lines in time, but the fourth went under as everyone jumped. The swimmers were pulled into the other boats and returned to shore.
Allison said, “Looks like they rejected the old god.”
Fatma sniffed and turned away. “They will find another in time.”
Allison knelt and rolled Mark over. His eyes were closed. She felt for a pulse, but did not find one.
She walked up the slope where Pastor Fatma and Molly were wrapping John’s calf.
“I can’t believe they are dead,” John said.
Allison nodded. “Yeah, I’m sorry. I should have done more. I should have done something.”
“I don’t know what to say, Allison,” John said. “I’m just damned sorry.”
The fire spread to the buildings, and villagers fought until it was doused but the village was gone. They gathered wagons, belongings, and the wounded.
“We need to take these people where they can get help,” Mposi said.
“The cities to the west?” David suggested. “There are good hospitals there.”
Allison shook her head. “The Masai may still be that way. I’m not sure they are friendly or forgiving at this point.”
“East around Lake Eyasi?” Mposi asked.
Allison licked her lips. “Mubulu is out that way. We can find help there, I think.”
She watched as the villagers wrapped Brood’s and Mark’s bodies, and then set them in a wagon.
“Do they have family?” Molly Gaskin asked.
Allison nodded. “Brood Kultha has a sister in Egypt. They are estranged, but I think she will want the body. It will be a difficult conversation, but he was my friend and part of my team, so I need to have it. Mark has brothers back in the States. They are not huge fans of me, but he’ll need to be taken back.”
“How are you going to explain all this?” Molly asked.
Allison shook her head and walked forward without answering. They loaded John on the back of the same wagon, with his leg stretched out between Mark and Brood where they lay shrouded. Allison walked on one side, and Mposi followed along on the other. The rest of the villagers followed in a line behind as everyone took turns pulling the wagons.
As the sun began to set, David worked his way up beside Allison at the front wagon. He said, “We’re going to need to find a place to camp soon. People are tired.”
Allison rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I know. I’ve had a bit of a long day too. We’ll stop soon.”
The men in front pulling the wagon began to shout. Allison walked away from David to see what was wrong.
“Wawindaji mfupa hasira! Mfupa hasira! Wawindaji mfupa hasira!”
Allison brought her weapon around and scanned the lake, but saw no monsters rising out of it. Motion around her feet caught her attention. She looked down and jumped back in surprise.
Dozens of the red, spined creatures twisted their way through the hard sand leaving their tiny, double helix footprints behind them. Some were as big and as long as her hand, others were longer and thicker than her arm.
They submerged one after the other into the lake without fear or any signs of unhealed injuries or pain.
As the last few swam out like water snakes and disappeared below the surface, Mposi asked, “Should we have shot them?”
“I’m not sure it would have made a difference. They may be the dominant species in this land now.”
Mposi looked at Allison and back across the water. “Did they hatch? Was that their mother we killed?”
“There was a lab hidden inside the armory,” Allison said. “They were experimenting on them. I think these got loose when the big one … liberated it. I’m not sure how they are related, Mposi.”
John leaned out over the side of the wagon. “Are they going out after the one we tried to kill?”
“What do you mean tried?” David Gaskin asked. “You think it may have survived? You think it will come back out?”
Mposi said, “The Hadazabe think it will not stop until it consumes all the world but here.”
“Someone better tell Fatma that her God has some competition.” John leaned back into his spot on the wagon.
“Where are the poachers when you need them?” Allison said, but no one gave an answer. She nodded. “I think we need to keep going.”
No one argued as the villagers took hold of the wagon and pressed forward around the lake. Allison stepped over the tracks left by the tiny Bone Hunters in the sand. She thought about contacting the families of her dead team members in Egypt and in the United States. She thought about the creatures swimming in Lake Eyasi right next to them and how big she knew they could grow.
She started to believe that the other side of the world might not be far enough to get away from the reach of some types of gods and some breeds of monsters.
Allison whispered to herself. “Giza … Mambaya … Dark Evil …”
The End
Read on for a free sample of Atomic Rex
Prologue
The morning sky was a dim orange as Chris Myers shifted the controls forward to move the fifty meter tall robot known as Steel Samurai onto the beach of Coney Island. The robot was an imposing figure that literally had the appearance of a giant samurai, including a helmet, and a twenty meter long sword. In addition to the sword, the robot was armed to the teeth with a giant crossbow, rockets, and high powered machine guns. Behind Steel Samurai were two more giant robots, known as Iron Avenger, and Bronze Warrior. Both of the robots were equally as well armed as Steel Samurai. The robots were piloted by Chris’s best friend, Jeremy Draven, and Jeremy’s girlfriend, Laura Swan. Together the three giant robots, or mechs as the media had dubbed them, represented humanity’s best hope of preserving this last section of what was once the United States of America.
Chris was all too aware of the fact that the last hope which the mechs represented was a slim one. He seemed to recall an old song about living on a prayer, and as he stared at the Atlantic Ocean and the large swell of water approaching the beach, he wasn’t even sure that humanity had a prayer.
Chris closed his eyes, and he thought about the events that had brought him to this point. He couldn’t believe that in less than two years most of North America, and the rest of the world, had fallen under the control of the kaiju. It had all started with atomic tests taking place on a remote island in the Pacific Ocean. The world thought that the area tested on was only inhabited by sea birds and a few small mammals. The truth was that the governments of the world were all too eager to test their new weapons to check exactly what was on those islands. If someone had so much as flown over the island they would have noticed it was inhabited by a tribe of islanders and numerous prehistoric creatures.
Two months after the atomic bomb was detonated on the island, the first kaiju created by the blast attacked New Orleans. The monster was a huge turtle, nearly sixty meters long, whose saliva had been turned into a corrosive acid. The creature was given the name Tortiraus. There were reports that the monster was somehow able to fly and that it was seen splashing down in the Gulf of Mexico. Regardless of how Tortiraus arrived there, the kaiju quickly destroyed New Orleans. During his attack on the city, Tortiraus had proved nearly invulnerable to conventional weapons. The armed forces were simply unable to defeat the creature, and the entire Gulf of Mexico, as well as anything that was fifty kilometers inland from the Gulf, was declared Tortiraus’s territory. The government decided that more lives would be saved by simply leaving the creature alone and moving away from it rather than attacking it again.
A week later a second creature had attacked San Francisco. This time the kaiju appeared to be one of the natives from the island that had been mutated into a monster. The islander was now a fifty-five meter tall giant with a huge bloated gut. When the giant entered the city he began devouring everything thing that he encountered. The kaiju devoured any meat that he could find. Fish, horses, cows, dogs, even people were grabbed up by the giant and tossed into his mouth. Some idiot blogger had named the giant Yokozuna. Apparently the name means something like grand sumo champion in Japanese. Whatever the name meant it quickly stuck to the giant, and he was officially designated as Yokozuna. When it became clear that the armed forces were unable to defeat the creature, everything from Northern California to Canada was declared Yokozuna’s territory, and everyone who was still alive in the area was evacuated.
After Yokozuna, more reports started to come in from all over the world. Sightings of monsters in the oceans, and then reports of attacks on other countries began appearing up all over the internet. To further complicate matters, the radiation given off by Tortiraus and Yokozuna spread like a plague and created other giant mutations. For the most part, these mutations were lesser kaiju, like giant bugs or rodents. While the Army was able to destroy these creatures individually, the sheer number of giant mutants quickly became a problem.
A group of giant ants dubbed the Colony had been mutated by Yokozuna. The Colony moved into Los Angeles where they also began devouring people. Once again humans were forced to evacuate and give L.A. to the monsters.
In response to the growing crisis, The U.S. government quickly approved a plan to create their own atomic monsters in the form of giant nuclear powered robots. A dozen robots were created to retake The Northern West Coast and the Gulf of Mexico. For the first time since Tortiraus had gained control of the South Eastern United States, the people of the world had hope. That hope lasted until the first robot, Steel Sentry, challenged Tortiraus and the kaiju tore through Steel Sentry as if it were made of aluminum foil. The same thing happened when another of the mechs challenged Yokozuna. After only two battles, the number of mechs had been reduced to ten while the number of kaiju continued to increase.
Giladon, a quadrupedal monster that resembled a colossal Gila monster, came ashore next in the Sea of Cortez. The monster made its way up into Utah, Wyoming, and Colorado where it killed millions of people. This time two mechs went to challenge the beast, but Giladon destroyed them both.
Giladon had no sooner claimed his territory than a twenty foot tall creature, that looked a like a heavily muscled man with pitch black skin and long fangs, suddenly showed up in New Mexico and Arizona. No one seemed to know where the monster had come from. It literally just fell out of the sky one day right into the middle of Santa Fe. The creature was dubbed Ogre by those that survived the beast’s attack on Santa Fe. Ogre was small by the standards of the other monsters that had appeared as he was only about six meters tall. Several theories began to spring up about what exactly Ogre had formerly been. One theory was that Ogre was a primate who had lived on the island and was turned into a monster from the atomic tests conducted there. Other people speculated that the he was at one time a human who had been mutated by Giladon when the kaiju had made his way through the Southwest.
