Operation Red Dragon: The Daikaiju Wars: Part One Read online

  Bill pushed himself to run even faster, even as his legs began to feel numb from the exertion. He shoved all thoughts of the monsters from his mind, focusing all of his attention on the cave and the safety it promised, and was only vaguely aware that the ground was starting to rumble beneath his feet.

  The scorpions were closing in. This would be close.

  He dove for the cave.

  He tumbled end over end.

  He was stopped when his back slammed into a flat slab of rock, which knocked the air from his lungs.

  As he tried to regain his breath and his senses, he could hear the snapping of pinchers and striking of stingers, but none of them were accompanied by pain. As he recomposed himself, he realized this meant that the scorpions could not reach him in the cave. He was safe, at least for the moment.

  The ground continued to tremble, but Bill realized this trembling was not being caused by the scorpions. They were big, but not that big, and the ground had not shook like this during the chase. No, this trembling came from below, like an earthquake.

  If it was, indeed, an earthquake, then Bill had simply traded one danger for another. He was having a very hard time deciding which of his potential fates would be worse: being eaten alive by impossibly large scorpions, or being buried alive in a cave no one else knew the location of.

  As the trembling grew more violent, the scorpions retreated from the cavemouth, granting Bill a clear view of the valley outside. He watched as the ground heaved beneath the rocky spires.

  He watched as the dirt crumbled from those spires, revealing them to be smooth conical spikes shining like ivory in the midday sun.

  He watched as the ground actually rose up, resting on the back of some massive living thing he could not see the entirety of. Or perhaps the ground was its back.

  He heard a terrifying, guttural roar louder than anything he had ever heard before.

  Fear overtook him, and he was suddenly a child again, terrified of monsters he had not believed in for years. He turned away from the entrance in terror, covering his ears and squeezing his eyes shut as tightly as he could. This did little good, as he could still hear the scuttling of the scorpions’ feet peppered with sickeningly wet crunching, and feel the repeated impact of what sounded like a dozen bombs exploding just outside. He braced himself for a cave-in, expecting each new breath drawn to be his last.

  It took Bill five full minutes to realize that the commotion beyond his natural sanctuary had ceased, and the thunderous booming, which had the rhythm of footsteps to it, was growing faint.

  Slowly, he opened his eyes, turned, and crept back towards the entrance, squinting as he stepped into the sunlight. Once his eyes adjusted, he was treated to a horrifically amazing sight.

  The forest of spires was no longer stretched out before him. In fact, it was almost perpendicular to the ground and disappearing behind a mountain. Where it had once been, an expanse of sand and gravel now rested. It did not rise quite as high as the cave entrance, but he guessed that he could probably clamber down into it without much trouble and return to civilization. Scattered about were the scorpions, crushed and mangled as if by an enormous studded boot. In the distance, sunlight glinted off an oblong metallic object hanging in the sky like a silvery fruit.

  Even through the severe shell shock brought on by the chase, Bill Forbes swore to himself that he would never return to this part of the Rockies ever again.

  It would be years before he told anyone this terrifying tale, and as he expected, he was mostly met with disbelief and ridicule.

  The day after Bill Forbes’ harrowing fight for survival, Carlos Hernandez was flying his helicopter out over the Pacific, a few miles off the coast of Chile. He had no particular destination or goal in mind for this flight. He was simply doing a routine systems check to make sure everything was in working order. Carlos made his living as a freelance pilot for hire, flying tourists, explorers, and aristocrats with nothing better to do wherever they wanted to go in a helicopter he had purchased from the military before it could be banished to the scrap heap. This season had been slow, and so his chopper had been sitting in its hangar for long stretches of time. In order to keep it from getting too dusty, he would take it out on little excursions like this one every so often.

  During this particular flight, something in the distance out over the ocean caught his eye. At first, it looked like a dark storm cloud, which was odd, since the weather report had not called for any storms that day, and the only other clouds in the sky were white and fluffy. Yet the cloud darkness which loomed ahead of him was undeniable. It swirled above a roiling patch of sea, and there were frequent bursts of bright orange flares within it.

  Strange, he thought and brought his chopper to a hover. In all of his years as a pilot, he had never witnessed anything like orange lightning, nor had he ever even heard of such a thing.

  He squinted. The longer he stared at the cloud, the less it resembled one. The swirling was too fast, the shape too inconsistent, and the color too dark. It looked familiar, but where had he seen something like it before? He wracked his brain, but the answer eluded him.

  As both a pilot and a sane individual, he knew that flying towards a weather anomaly, especially an unusual one, was a potentially suicidal move, but he was nonetheless curious. He turned his chopper and advanced towards the cloud, resolving not to get too close, but close enough to get a clearer view and figure out what this strange phenomenon was.

  Carlos drew nearer to the anomaly, and he could now pick out distinct shapes within it. He could see that the cloud was not a cloud at all, but hundreds of dark things in the air, moving in swirling patterns. From this distance, still a few miles away, the things resembled birds.

  Starlings! That was what the cloud resembled: a murmuration of starlings swirling through the air in a rhythmic pattern. Yet this was impossible. Not only were starlings not native to Chile, but these birds before him were enormous. Even from where he currently hovered, it was clear that each one was at least as big as the various planes his chopper shared a hangar with, quite possibly bigger.

  Burning curiosity compelled him to get just a little bit closer. The orange bursts came into focus now. They were not lightning strikes, but jets of flame, some striking things within the murmuration, some plummeting down to the churning sea. Carlos looked down at the boiling ocean, and saw large, leathery creatures bursting in and out of the waves, occasionally retaliating with fiery beams of their own. He could also now see that not all of the creatures within the murmuration were avian. Some looked bulky, like insects, yet still massive, and these moved against the swirling motion in chaotic disarray. The bird-like beasts also no longer looked exactly like birds, as the proportions of their bodies were all wrong. Whatever the bird-things were, they clearly did not like the bugs or the sea creatures.

  To Carlos, it looked like a scene from prehistory, and in the blink of an eye, the scene changed.

  A loud shriek filled the air, startling him from his mesmerized state. It was ear-piercing, drowning out even the pounding of the rotors, yet had a majestic quality combined with a sense of authority, like the shouted orders of a commander on the battlefield. It clearly came from Carlos’ left.

  At the sound, the birdlike creatures departed, sweeping away like a cloud of dust, leaving the insects and sea beasts alone. Once the last of the birds were gone, a column of flame burst from the heavens. Carlos could feel the heat even from where he sat within the safety of his cockpit.

  The light was too much for his eyes. He covered them and turned, whispering a terrified prayer in his native Spanish tongue. He remembered the story of Moses and the Exodus from Egypt, a tale he had not thought of in years. God had appeared as fire in that story, including the pillar of flame that came from Heaven and led the Israelites to the Promised Land. This light was so blinding, it could only be described as divine.

  Then he remembered the legends of Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent who descended from the sky on the rays
of the sun. It was a beast the ancient inhabitants of South America had worshipped as a deity, so great was its power, and it had demanded their blood as an offering.

  If the pillar of flame before him was the Lord God, Carlos was very intent on asking forgiveness for all of his sins as quickly as he could. If it was Quetzalcoatl, and the strange birds were its children, then prayers would do no good.

  The heat died, and the blinding light faded. Carlos looked to where it had come down.

  Thick pillars of steam billowed from the water, obscuring anything that might have been floating on the now calm surface. The sky ahead was clear. Where once monstrous beings had swarmed, now there was nothing. The flame must have incinerated them all.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of the murmuration. The flying birdlike terrors were returning, and heading straight for him.

  Cursing his curiosity, Carlos jerked the cyclic to the side, turning the chopper back towards the mainland. Then he pushed it to fly to safety as fast as it could go.

  He glanced behind him, and he now saw the birds clearly.

  No, he now realized they were not birds. They had no feathers, and many of them had long crests and horns atop their heads. Dragons, perhaps? Pterosaurs? Whatever they were, they were gaining on him.

  Carlos’ heart pounded furiously against his ribcage as if it were trying to escape his body and flee to shore ahead of him. He leaned forward, as if that would somehow make the chopper move faster. Still they gained.

  It was no use. The winged devils would overtake him any moment now. Even so, he was too afraid to do anything but keep fleeing.

  The first of the avian monsters flew past him at an alarming speed, followed by another, and another, until he was completely surrounded by them. None of the monstrosities paid Carlos any heed.

  Without warning, the sun vanished.

  Carlos looked up. Something large and solid was passing over him and the murmuration, but it was too low and too massive for him to tell what on earth it was.

  When it passed, turbulence struck with a vengeance. The chopper wobbled in the air, the rotors striking several of the surrounding pterosaur creatures. None of them showed signs of major injury from the collisions, and they limped on without retaliating.

  Carlos was not so lucky.

  The rotors had been damaged by the creatures’ thick hides. He could not recover in time to reach land, and would have to ditch in the ocean. Silently, he thanked God that he had remembered to attach and fill the floats before flying that day.

  The creatures passed, and Carlos fought against gravity and nature to hit the water as gently as he could manage.

  The landing was still hard, but he survived.

  Once he had allowed himself a moment to relax, he realized that he was mercifully close to the shore, not enough to swim, but enough that someone would see him and send help. He could make out the town ahead, but he was too far away to make out any details.

  He grabbed the binoculars he kept in the cockpit and focused on the town. He was relieved to see that it still stood, though the people were out and about, all eyes turned upward towards the heavens.

  So others had seen the creatures. Carlos was relieved to know that. Now he could tell people what had just happened without being labeled as a lunatic.

  He heard a low humming sound as his rotors stopped spinning, and looked up to see an oblong metallic object flying towards the shore in pursuit of the pterosaurs.

  Well, maybe people would still think he was crazy if he mentioned that.

  This was how it all began.

  CHAPTER 1

  April 26, 1964

  “Garbage! Rubbish! Absolutely WORTHLESS!”

  The Editor-In-Chief of the Northwest Tribune, the smallest newspaper in the entire state of Oregon, slammed the folder onto his desk with the same level of disgust and contempt he might have had for a rotting fish being served to him for dinner. Richard Godfrey flinched at the impact, and his spirits began to dwindle as the Editor followed his critiques with, “I’ve never read something so completely, insipidly stupid in my whole life!”

  Richard did his best to maintain his composure as he sat across from the Editor. If he channeled his frustration at this treatment into keeping a strong, unaffected front, he might still be able to sell the article. It had worked once or twice for him before. “So…not front page material, then?” he said. It was a feeble comeback, delivered with little confidence, but unfortunately, it was hard to come up with something better under the barrage of angry insults.

  The Editor erupted in loud, condescending, fake-sounding laughter that caused the rolls of fat on his body to ripple. “Front page? Are you kidding me? This tripe isn’t worthy of the funny pages!” He leaned forward, his brow furrowed. “You expect me to print a story about some crazy fishmonger who says a dinosaur in the water sank his dinghy?”

  Richard’s anger began to boil within him again, but he channeled as much of it as he could into his clenched fists, which he kept settled on his lap. He was determined to not be dragged into a shouting match with this man. Shouting matches with newspaper editors never ended well for the reporters; this he knew from experience. Still, he had to say something in defense of his subject. “Joe Pascal is a retired Navy officer, highly decorated,” he said. “Some of his friends he served with were on the boat, too. They backed him up on this.”

  “Oh, he was in the Navy, and his boyfriends are behind him? Well, stop the bloody presses!” The Editor’s mocking tone grated against Richard’s ears just as much as the buzzing of the printers and clicking of typewriters that were poorly muffled by the glass door to the office. “I don’t care if this nutball is the latest reincarnation of the Dalai Lama! Nobody believes in this sea monster crap, and if you do, then no wonder you’re still freelance!”

  That tore it. Richard could stay calm when defending the subjects of his articles, but when someone insulted his journalistic integrity, that was when the gloves came off. It was personal now.

  In an instant, Richard leapt from his seat and lunged forward, slamming his fists on the desk and meeting the Editor’s gaze directly, their faces mere inches apart. “I’m freelance by choice, pal! I’m freelance because people like Joe need someone who’ll listen to them when no one else will! Someone who’ll give them a voice!”

  The Editor was undaunted by the sudden display. “Some folks would call that indulging people’s insanity.”

  “There’s evidence! What about the photographs?”

  “Blurry. Could be anything. A log…a canoe…a turd…” The Editor emphasized that last one as though he were driving a nail with a hammer.

  “Or it could be the real deal!” Richard countered. “I had this analyzed by experts, and it wasn’t tampered with!”

  The Editor’s eyes narrowed, and a look of smug triumph radiated from them like the sickening white glow of the florescent lights embedded in the ceiling. “Listen, twerp, you’re not winning this one. I say your article is crap, and at the Tribune, my word is God’s Law. Around here, we report on real stuff, world events like the Commies and the race riots, not the hallucinations people have on a bender at sea.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you take a lot of pride in it!” Richard stood to his full height, which was not much, but still taller than the blob before him. “I’m sure all twelve of your readers just adore the pretensions of this small backwater rag before tossing it in the fireplace or wrapping their fish in it!”

  As satisfying as it was to say, Richard instantly regretted voicing his harsh opinion, especially when the Editor turned it back on him. “Well right now, I’m looking at some scrawny good-for-nothing who, just a minute ago, was hoping this small backwater rag would run his fish story, and I’m very confident that this is the last time I’ll ever see him, in person or in print.” He leaned back in his chair, satisfied that he had won. “Take your folder out of my office and go start your own fire with it, maybe in a steel drum down a dark alley like the bum
you are.”

  The fight was utterly unsalvageable, and Richard knew it. As he reached for his folder, the Editor’s stubby hand shot out like a cobra and shoved it away from him, spilling the contents onto the floor. “Oh dear, I’m so sorry,” he said, his voice more condescending than what he might use for an infant.

  Blinking away angry tears, Richard knelt down to collect his scattered work. He averted his gaze from the Editor, but had no doubt that the fat man was wearing a smug expression the whole time. As he did, he fantasized about slicing the tires of the fat blowhard’s car, but he did not do so as he left. He would not have even if he had a knife sharp enough to do so.

  Richard spent the next hour sitting outside of a café a few blocks down the road, sipping a lukewarm coffee as people bustled in and out the door, clearly all with places to be, unlike him. All he could do was stare at the folder and lament his current state of being.

  Back in Fifty-two, when he had decided to dedicate his life to reporting on the Absurd, he had really meant it. For the rest of that semester, he had devoured everything he could find on the paranormal and bizarre, memorizing the terms and phenomena like an actor learning lines for a play. The choice to remain freelance was a tough one, but he found that it offered him a level of freedom that a steady job did not. Besides, most newspapers did not have a regular section for paranormal events, and one never knew what might catch an editor’s eye.

  He had wasted no time in getting into the thick of it when he graduated the following year. In the Fifties, America had been fascinated with UFOs, and some of his best-received articles were on that phenomenon. During this time, he had also published articles on monster sightings, and for reasons he could never quite quantify, he found that subject far more intriguing than flying saucers. Perhaps it was fueled by his childhood love of dinosaurs, or his love for the many giant monster movies released in that decade, but whatever it was, he was prouder of his monster articles than any others.