No, I can’t lose him, too!
Then, through the bustling confusion, she glimpsed Sam tottering about in the chaos, looking lost and confused. Numerous strangers jostled the little boy, too caught up in the overall emergency to pay attention to a single unattended child on the verge of tears. Sam looked about anxiously, searching for a familiar face. Elle’s heart nearly burst from her chest.
“SAM!”
Her voice reached him through the hubbub. Turning toward her, he spied his mother at the top of the steps. His face lit up in relief.
“Mommy!”
He ran toward her with his tiny arms outstretched.
“No!” she cried out, afraid of losing him in the crowd again. “Wait there!”
But it was no use. Desperate for his mother, Sam raced for the steps and was almost immediately swallowed up by swirling maelstrom of soldiers, paramedics, evacuees, stretchers, IVs, and gurneys. Rushing down the steps, shoving her way through the hectic mass exodus, Elle tried to keep him in sight, but too many much larger bodies got in the way. People were practically stampeding toward the buses and ambulances now, desperate not to be left behind. Any pretense at a calm and orderly evacuation was devolving into bedlam.
Hang on, baby, I’m coming!
* * *
Sam couldn’t get to his mommy. Big people rushed past him on all sides, blocking him and spinning him around until he didn’t know which way to go. He looked for Mommy, but he couldn’t see her anymore. There were too many people all around, all in too big of a hurry to notice him. A swinging elbow knocked him down and he fell onto the pavement. Rushing feet stomped past him and, unable to get back up, he curled up into a ball, afraid that the crowd was going to stomp all over him. Boots and shoes smacked against the ground, only inches away from him. Terrified, tears pouring down his face, he screamed for his mommy.
And all at once she was there, her comforting arms scooping him up from the pavement and holding him close. A flood of grownups swept past them on either side, ignoring the rescue, but Sam wasn’t afraid anymore. His mother had found him.
“It’s okay, I got you,” she cooed, hugging him tightly. “I got you.”
* * *
Thank God, Elle thought.
She had gotten to him just in time. Things were getting seriously crazy out here now that the last of the buses were beginning to pull away. A few more moments and Sam might have actually been trampled in the rush. She hefted him in her arms and squeezed him with all her strength. She never wanted to let go of him again.
And yet, glancing around, she saw that there was only one school bus left. Her heart was torn in two as she spotted Laura herding the children from their ward onto the bus, which, in theory, would take them out of harm’s way. If Sam stayed behind with her, he would be trapped in a city that was looking at a disaster of unimaginable proportions. Conflicted, Elle found herself faced with two equally ghastly prospects: letting Sam out of her sight or risking his life by keeping him with her. It was agonizing dilemma, but, deep down inside, she understood that, if he stayed, she would not be able to protect him from the horrors in store.
The monsters were coming—and she knew what she had to do.
“Wait!” she shouted, running toward the last bus with Sam in her arms. “Wait!”
She reached the bus and tried to put him down on the bus’s steps. He clung to her, just as unwilling to let go as she was. Laura stepped forward to help Sam onto the bus. The older nurse held out her hand, but Sam turned away from her, wanting his mother instead.
“Sammy,” Elle said, her heart breaking. “You remember Laura, mommy’s work-friend? You need to go with her, okay?”
His eyes welled with tears. Panic filled his voice. “No, mommy, no!”
She was briefly tempted to climb into the bus with him, but then she remembered all the injured patients back in the triage unit. Someone had to stay to look after them. She suddenly appreciated, more than ever, the dilemma Ford confronted every time his duty called him away from his family. Fighting back tears of her own, she fought to keep up a brave face. For Sam’s sake.
“Mommy has to stay and help people. But I’ll see you soon, I promise.”
She pulled him tightly to her chest, just for a moment, then reluctantly let go. Peeling his tiny arms away from her was harder than clamping any bleeding artery. She felt like her own heart was being shredded by a monster’s claws. What if this was the last time she ever held her baby boy?
Laura tried again to take Sam from her. Her expression made it clear that she understood just how excruciating this farewell was for Elle. She gave the young mother a reassuring nod that testified to years of perfecting a good bedside manner.
“It’s okay,” she said, corralling Sam and taking his hand. “C’mon, Sammy.”
Laura led the boy up into the bus, where the driver was getting visibly impatient behind the wheel. She paused at the top of the steps to look back at Elle, who doing her best not to fall apart until the bus left. She didn’t want Sam to see how scared she was.
“I’ll keep him safe, Elle,” Laura said.
Elle knew she could count on Laura to keep her promise. Even so, as the door slid shut and the bus began to drive off, carrying Sam away, it took all of Elle’s strength and resolve not to change her mind and chase after the bus, screaming and shouting for it turn around and bring her boy back to her. He was only four years old. He needed his mother.
But he needed to get away, too. Before the monsters came.
Rain began to drizzle from the sky as she watched the bus join the procession heading for the Bridge. She waited, frozen in place, until she couldn’t see Sam’s bus anymore.
Then she turned and headed back to work.
At least Sam will be safe, she thought. If any of us are.
TWENTY-ONE
The tac-ops command center occupied a large state-of-the-art mobile trailer that had been tricked out with sophisticated communications and monitoring equipment. Networked screens lined the interior of the trailer to provide Admiral Stenz and his staff with real-time data, video, and satellite feeds. Large windows at the rear of the trailer offered a direct view of the bay and San Francisco. Analysts and technicians were already at their stations as Stenz strode into the trailer.
“Sit rep!” he demanded. “Where are our targets?”
“The male was spotted thirty miles west,” a civilian analyst reported, “off the Farallon Islands.”
“We’re showing seismic activity to the east, near Liver-more,” Martinez added. “Should be the female, closing in.”
Stenz nodded. “And the big one?”
The analysts shook their heads. The admiral glanced at the sonar screens from the ships offshore. They remained blank.
“Last contact was five hours ago,” Martinez said, “maintaining a bearing of zero-five-three degrees and descending past ten thousand feet. Nothing since.”
Five hours, Stenz thought. That was more than enough time for the submerged leviathan to reach the strait leading into the bay. Frowning, he turned his attention to another bank of monitors, where live satellite and CCTV feeds showed the Golden Gate Bridge. The outbound lanes, leading away from the city, were jammed bumper-to-bumper with school buses packed with kids. Damn it. Why aren’t those children to safety yet?
“There are still buses on that bridge,” he said. “Deploy everything we have. If they come at the bay, at least we’ll slow them down.”
But for how long?
* * *
“Everyone stay in your seats!” the bus driver hollered from behind the wheel. He honked his horn and shouted impatiently at the long line of buses in front of them on the bridge. “Come on, what’s the holdup?”
Sam’s bus, the last in the procession, was barely moving. Restless kids, most of them older than him, were getting loud and rowdy. Younger children were crying or refusing to stay in their seats, while the teenagers, who were working way too hard to hide how scared they were, joked and ro
ughhoused with each other. Sam sat huddled in the back, wanting his mother, but trying to be brave. He peered out of the rain-streaked windows at the huge steel cables of the bridge and the foggy waters of the bay. Mommy’s friend Laura was up near the front of the bus, struggling to maintain order. Sam wasn’t entirely sure where the bus was taking them, but he hoped they got there soon—and that Mommy would come get him as soon as she could.
Horns blasted loudly across the bridge, but the caravan of buses remained snarled in traffic. The vehicles crept forward, their drivers jostling for inches. Inside Sam’s bus, somebody started throwing spit wads at the other kids. A paper airplane flew by Sam’s head. A teenager complained that he was starving. Sam tried to ignore the ruckus. He wished everybody would just calm down.
The TV had said a monster was coming. A monster named Godzilla.
The roadway started to rumble beneath them and everyone got very quiet very fast. It felt a little like an earthquake, but then Sam spotted a convoy of army tanks and Stryker vehicles rolling onto the bridge’s vacant inbound lanes. The intimidating armored vehicles took up defensive positions on the bridge. Their big guns swiveled to face the ocean, which was hidden from view by a thick bank of fog. Sam remembered the toy soldiers and tanks he’d played with on the floor at home.
The dinosaur always wins, he remembered.
Sam gazed out the window, both scared and excited to see what the guns were aiming for. Drizzle streaked the windows, making them harder to see through. He wished there was some way he could wipe them clean from the inside. He pressed his nose up against the window.
THWACK!
Without warning, a seagull smacked headfirst into the window, startling Sam, who shrieked in alarm as more and more birds slammed into the bus, leaving bloody smears on the glass. The entire bus started freaking out as a whole flock of panicked gulls came flying inland out of the fog. Squawking loudly, they flapped frantically toward the city, as though desperately trying to escape… what?
He’s coming, Sam realized. The monster from TV.
Eyes wide, he glimpsed a huge shadowy form approaching through the fog and rain.
* * *
A rear guard of Navy LCS vessels ringed the entrance to the Golden Gate strait leading to the bay beyond. Sailors manned the ship’s powerful Mark-100 57mm naval guns. The approaching creature had simply dived beneath the earlier blockade further out at sea, but no one knew if he would resort to the same tactic again. This time a confrontation was all but inevitable.
Along with his fellow sailors, Ensign Mark Pierce waited tensely. They understood too well that this was the Navy’s last chance to keep the sea monster from making landfall—and that so far the beast had proved unstoppable.
Here he comes, Pierce thought. God help us all.
Computer-controlled, the fifteen-ton guns pivoted to take aim at the emerging shape as it began to rise high above the water. Peering through the mist, Pierce made out a tall, upright form ridged with jagged spikes or fins. The shape kept rising higher and higher until it towered above the surface of the sea like a newborn volcano. Pierce estimated that it had to be at least two hundred feet tall.
Jesus, I knew this thing was supposed to be big, but…
The shape grew higher and closer with every moment. The guns waited for the creature to fully reveal itself so they could target its head and chest. Great torrents of water cascaded off the sides of the creature until Pierce realized that what he’d assumed must be the head was just the pointed top of a large scaly appendage that swayed ominously back and forth above the water. The horrifying truth hit him like a thunderbolt.
That’s not the monster! That’s just the tip of his tail!
Two nearby ships suddenly keeled up from below, capsizing as the rest of Godzilla’s colossal body rose up from the strait behind them. Violent waves slammed against Pierce’s ship, causing it to pitch sharply. The startled seaman was thrown across the deck. Landing on his back, he stared up in shock at the titanic beast.
Walking upright on two prodigious legs, the giant reptile was nearly four hundred feet tall. His ponderous footsteps echoed through the fog as he waded toward the Golden Gate Bridge.
* * *
Godzilla’s appearance shattered the traffic jam on the bridge. Buses lurched forward, honking and ramming each other as they rushed to get off the bridge before the monster reached it. Tanks and Strykers opened fire all at once, unleashing a deafening barrage full of smoke and fire. Geysers of water sprayed high into the air where the explosive rounds struck the waves. Scorching salvos of advanced anti-tank ammo blistered Godzilla’s hard, scaly hide, causing him to flinch and roar in pain. He swatted furiously at the projectiles, as though they were a swarm of angry bees. The rounds chipped away at the armored plates protecting his mammoth form, but, weathering the inferno, he kept on coming.
Sam watched from the bus in both fear and fascination. Godzilla was not just a dinosaur. He was a giant dinosaur, and he was heading straight for the bridge, despite the army’s attack. The bus driver swore and leaned on his horn, alerting the other drivers that he was coming through no matter what. He hit the gas and the bus surged forward, tossing the kids back into their seats. Nurse Laura had to grab onto a seatback to keep from falling. Sam’s gaze swung back and forth between the far end of the bridge and the monster getting closer and closer. The nearer the Godzilla got, the bigger he looked.
And the smaller Sam felt.
Roaring furiously, Godzilla waded into the military’s fiery assault, which was obviously not going to slow him down for long. Sam held his breath, terrified that his bus was not going to make it across in time. He stared at Godzilla’s giant fangs and hoped that being eaten by a monster wouldn’t hurt too much.
“C’mon, c’mon!” the bus driver exclaimed. A gap opened up briefly in the traffic and he floored the accelerator so that the bus shot forward and cleared the bridge. Everyone was too scared to cheer, but Nurse Laura gasped in relief, sinking into an empty seat next to Sam. He had never seen a grownup look so scared before. She was pale and shaking.
We made it, he realized. We didn’t die.
Turning around in his seat, Sam gaped as, braving the heavy artillery, Godzilla reached the Golden Gate Bridge and tore right through it as though it was made of cardboard. The magnificent orange towers collapsed and thick steel cables, each nearly a yard in diameter, snapped like rubber bands as the monster smashed through the bridge midway across its span. The concrete roadway, with its six lanes, crumbled to pieces. Tanks and soldiers, along with ruptured cables and great slabs of bridge, spilled into the strait, falling hundreds of feet into the foaming water below where they disappeared beneath the waves and fog. The tanks and Strykers had done their part, Sam realized, slowing Godzilla long enough for the buses to make it to safety, but they couldn’t save themselves. Godzilla was just too strong.
Maybe nothing could stop him.
Godzilla waded into the bay, his gargantuan contours still partly veiled by the thick fog and rain. Snapped steel cables and mangled pieces of the bridge trailed from him like torn vines. He lifted his head toward the sky, as though sensing something. He snarled in anticipation.
Seconds later, a squadron of F-35 fighter jets screamed in over the bay. They homed in on Godzilla, letting loose with an onslaught of armor-piercing rounds and guided missiles. The high-tech weapons pocked his armored hide and pierced whole dorsal fins, inflicting more significant damage than the land-based forces had. Godzilla reeled in pain, obviously feeling the injuries. His clawed forearms slashed uselessly at the planes, which were careful to stay above his reach. They strafed him, then circled around for another run.
The fighters actually managed to halt Godzilla’s forward progress, at least for the moment. As Sam watched from the back of the bus, the battle-scarred monster lumbered onto Alcatraz Island, just a few miles past the wrecked bridge, where he towered above the abandoned prison, which Sam had once toured with his parents. The visitor’s center
was crushed beneath his huge clawed feet.
The F-35s pursued him, but Godzilla did not retreat. His jaws opened wide and a full-throated roar rang out over the bay. Sam shuddered as the buses sped north toward the hills beyond the bridge. The Air Force had hurt Godzilla, but the little boy knew that the battle wasn’t over yet.
The dinosaur always wins…
* * *
The Yakima sped through the choppy waters of the bay, heading for the open sea beyond. As Pierce understood it, the idea was to try to lure the MUTOs and Godzilla out into the ocean before detonating the warhead. Along with the rest of the technical crew, Pierce hurriedly prepped the primitive mechanical timer on the bomb, which was lashed down to the deck of the ship. He used a DIP switch to manually enter the launch codes, while hoping that the winged MUTO, wherever it was, wouldn’t come swooping down from the sky before he was finished. He could hear the Air Force fighters pounding away at Godzilla across the bay. The monster’s roar, audible even above the plane’s unleashed firepower, sent a chill down Pierce’s spine.
“Six, niner, bravo, zulu,” he said, trying to keep his voice and hands steady.
Another technician, Schultz, confirmed the code sequence. “Six, niner, bravo, zulu.”
That’s it then, Pierce thought. Despite the rain and fog, his mouth suddenly felt as dry as the Mojave. He traded disbelieving looks with Schultz. We’re really doing this.
Swallowing hard, he set the timer.
Schultz signaled to another man, who nodded and fired a flare into the sky. It rocketed upward, trailing a stream of bright red fire. Pierce watched the flare ascend before looking back at the ticking timer. The countdown had begun.
Three hours and counting.
TWENTY-TWO
The flare was visible at the mobile command center overlooking the bay. Spotters immediately reported it to Tac-Ops, where Martinez started the timer countdown on a digital wall display above the main monitor:
3:00:00. 02:59:59. 02:59:58…
Everyone in the trailer felt the weight of the moment. The countdown made the unthinkable decision more real somehow. Standing gravely behind the tense military personnel, Serizawa wound his watch. He and Stenz exchanged somber looks, both of them fully aware of the magnitude of what was to come and the responsibility they both bore.