The toppled monster looked as bad as Ford felt. His scaly body was scarred and bleeding, raw muscle and sinew showing through his armored plates in places. An ugly gash stretched across his neck. Stalactite-like fangs were cracked and chipped. Blood and bile dripped from his sagging jaws. His tremendous tail twitched feebly beneath the debris. Ford felt a twinge of sympathy for the injured behemoth, which had inadvertently saved him from the other monsters at least twice. The MUTOs had obviously done a number on him.
You and me both, Ford thought.
For a long moment, man and beast locked eyes across the desolate ruins. Two weary warriors, injured on the same battleground. A severed black wing, protruding from the rubble, gave Ford hope that Godzilla had killed at least the male MUTO. Ford nodded in approval, grateful for the destruction of the creature that had killed his parents and so many others. According to Dr. Serizawa, he recalled, Godzilla had left humanity alone for ages until the MUTOs lured him up from the depths.
Bursts of gunfire down at the wharf jolted Ford from his reverie. Leaving Godzilla behind, he sprinted toward the action, tracking bloody boot prints behind him.
Looks like my war’s not over yet.
Racing downhill on adrenaline, he saw Quinn and the others opening fire on the female from the deck of a commandeered tour boat. The men unloaded their M4s at the MUTO in a final, defiant blaze of glory. Muzzles flashed and bullets flew, chipping away at the monster’s scorched black carapace. Smoke filled the air between the troops and the female, but Ford spied the warhead resting on the deck of the boat, which appeared dead in the water. He hoped Bennett had managed to disarm it already, but suspected that was just wishful thinking.
The countdown was still on.
The female reared backwards on her hind legs, momentarily taken aback by the troops’ firepower. Then, screeching furiously, she lashed out with an upper middle arm and swept all the annoying humans from the boat with a single motion. A hooked talon sheared off the roof of the cabin.
Ford froze, stunned by the speed with which Quinn and Bennett and the rest had been wiped out. For a moment, he thought he was on his own until two more soldiers emerged from defensive positions along the wharf. They signaled Ford to make for the boat—and the warhead—while they provided cover.
“Go, go!” they hollered.
The men opened fire on the female from behind, getting her attention. She whirled about to confront them, murder in her blood-red eyes. Spittle sprayed from her snapping beak. Ford feared for the other men’s safety, but took advantage of the distraction they were heroically providing. Sprinting down to the waterfront, he raced across the dock and leapt onto the stranded tour boat. Ignoring the blood splattered across the deck, he hurried to the helm, which was now roofless and exposed to the elements. He tried to gun the engine, but to no avail; the MUTO’s disruptive sphere of influence was still in effect. Frustrated, he scrambled back down the deck and attempted to drag the warhead below and out of sight of the MUTO, but the bomb was far too heavy for just one man to manage. It wasn’t going anywhere.
Ford put his rifle aside. Desperate to get the warhead away from the city and the MUTO, in that order, he grabbed a pole and tried to shove off from the dock. It took all his remaining strength, but the boat only drifted a few yards out into the bay before ending up dead in the water again. It floated listlessly upon the surf, not remotely far enough away from the city to make the slightest difference. Shell casings rolled noisily across the pitching deck. Ford glanced anxiously at his watch. The mushroom cloud was less than fifteen minutes away.
Now what was he supposed to?
The gunfire halted abruptly, which told Ford that his remaining comrades had probably not survived their assault on the female. The boat rotated slowly in the water, so that the waterfront came into view before him.
And so did the female.
She leaned out over the boat, which was still easily within her grasp. The glowing sensors on her snout twitched. Drool dripped from her maw as she gazed greedily at the warhead. Her clawed forearms flexed in anticipation.
Does she know I’m the one that torched her nest, Ford wondered, or is she just after the warhead?
Not that it really mattered. He reached instinctively for his rifle, only to find it lying out of reach on the deck a few yards away. He slumped against a railing, exhausted and defeated. He’d fought the good fight, but there was nowhere left to run and nothing left to do. The boat was dead, the bomb was live, and the monster had him cornered at last. This time there was no bridge to dive off.
So long, Elle, Sam, he thought again. You’ll never know how much I loved you.
The female lowered her jaws toward him, so that Ford found himself face to ugly face with the giant MUTO. Her breath was hot and smelled of ozone. Sticky orange pus oozed from her burns. With nothing to lose, he formed a gun with his fingers and pointed it right between the female’s eyes. A wry smile lifted the corners of his lips.
“Pow,” he mouthed.
The female snorted. She drew back a clawed arm to dispose of this final nuisance. Ford readied himself for the fatal blow, then experienced a sudden surge of hope as he spotted something above and behind the MUTO.
Something big.
The female’s slavering maw opened wide, but her hostile screech was drowned out by a louder, more commanding roar that rang out across the waterfront and perhaps even the entire city. Ford gazed in awe at his unexpected savior.
Godzilla, King of the Monsters, loomed behind the MUTO. His scaly hide torn and battered, his dorsal fins cracked or broken off completely, he swayed unsteadily upon his mammoth legs like a twelfth-round boxer making his final stand. His endless tail was braced against the ground behind him, helping to keep him upright. He looked almost as spent as Ford, but an indomitable fury still blazed within his fierce eyes. He wasn’t done yet.
Startled, the female whipped around to face her enemy. A furious howl issued from her throat, but was abruptly cut off—by a blast of volcanic blue fire.
Godzilla’s fiery breath staggered the MUTO. With a single swipe of his arm, he decapitated the other creature whose lower limps crumpled beneath her as she crashed lifelessly onto the pier, crushing it beneath her weight. Her head went flying into the bay, where it sank from sight. Dislodged docks and pilings splashed into the bay. Water splashed onto the creature’s headless remains.
Ford’s jaw dropped. He couldn’t believe it.
The MUTO was dead.
Almost immediately, the lights began to come back on in what was left of the city. Streetlights flared to life and the bright lights of Fisherman’s Wharf returned despite the lack of any tourists to enjoy them. With both MUTOs deceased, their sphere of influence had popped like a soap bubble.
Thanks to Godzilla.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Serizawa started as, abruptly, the power came back on in the Tac-Ops trailer. Dead video screens awoke and fresh data began feeding into the mobile command center. Startled analysts and technicians looked at each other in confusion, but Serizawa understood.
He did it, he realized. Godzilla destroyed the MUTOs… as Nature intended.
He and Graham exchanged looks of relief until he realized that the countdown clock on the wall was still ticking down to a thermonuclear explosion. Concentric circles, spreading out on illuminated maps and simulations, confirmed that the warhead was now down by the waterfront, which put the entire city still squarely within the blast zone.
But at least Admiral Stenz and his forces were no longer blinded and crippled by the MUTO’s electromagnetic pulses. Perhaps there was still hope.
Stenz appeared to think so. He nodded urgently at Captain Hampton.
“Go,” he ordered. “Go!”
Seconds later, Serizawa heard a helicopter taking off outside.
* * *
Ford watched in wonder as, block by block, the surviving street lamps came on across the city. The comforting glow of the lamps combatted the harsh black smoke fr
om the fires. On the waterfront, standing victorious over his fallen foe, Godzilla tottered and dropped onto a massive knee. His weight squashed the headless body of the female, which spurted a gooey ichor over the crumbling piers. Godzilla’s shoulders slumped in exhaustion. Ford guessed that it had taken the very last of the great reptile’s strength to dispose of the final MUTO once and for all. Godzilla’s labored breathing could be heard across the water. The monster’s eyelids drooped. He appeared utterly spent.
Ford knew just how he felt.
He slumped against boat’s exposed helm, all too aware that the armed warhead rendered the MUTOs’ defeat academic. It was possible, he supposed, that Godzilla might survive the blast, as he had back in ’54, but San Francisco was doomed regardless. Ford prayed that somehow, against the odds, Elle had managed to make it out of the city after all. With any luck, she and Sam would survive.
Dropping to his own knees, he was on the verge of passing out when the boat’s engines suddenly revved to life. A fresh jolt of adrenaline rushed through Ford as he scrambled to his feet and jammed the throttle.
The boat shot away from the docks and out into the bay. Losing blood and strength, Ford clung to the helm and fought to stay conscious. Within minutes, the mangled remains of the Golden Gate Bridge came into the view. Ford steered the boat toward the strait and the open sea beyond. He could barely stand and felt light-headed, but he kept bearing down on the throttle.
Hang on, he ordered himself. Just a little bit further…
* * *
In the command trailer, all eyes were locked onto the screen monitoring the warhead. The radial circles denoting the blast zone were swiftly shifting across the map. The warhead was on the move again, but was it going fast enough? Time was running out.
Serizawa twisted the stem of his pocket watch.
* * *
A resounding crash echoed across the bay. Glancing behind him, Ford saw Godzilla collapse onto the wharf. Blocks of world-famous waterfront were crushed beneath the monster’s sprawled form. For a moment, Ford thought Godzilla was dead, but then he saw the fallen giant’s chest heaving ponderously. The huge saurian was wheezing audibly with every breath.
Ford looked away from the debilitated monster, turning his gaze back toward the strait ahead. Godzilla had done his part, ridding the world of the MUTOs. Now Ford had to make sure that the goliath’s victory was not a Pyrrhic one and that the remainder of San Francisco would not be consumed by thermonuclear fire, like that atoll in the South Pacific so many years ago.
His vision began to blur. Ford shook his head to clear it, but he knew he was nearing his limit if he hadn’t already passed it before now. Fresh blood pooled at his feet. He felt chilled and dizzy. Given all he’d been through the last few days, it was a wonder that he was still standing at all, but none of that would matter if he didn’t complete this final mission. He wondered if this was how his dad had felt right before the Janjira plant melted down.
Probably not, he thought. Unlike Joe, he had no doubts or unanswered questions to torment him. Everything was very simple now; Ford knew exactly what he had to do. He glanced back at the bomb on the deck and peered at his watch to see how much time he had left, but the digital display blurred and wavered before his eyes. It was getting harder and harder to focus.
No matter, he decided. Just keep going as long as you can. Either it will be enough… or it won’t.
A peculiar calm descended on him. The world and its cares began to recede from his consciousness, becoming fuzzy and dream-like. The surreal image of the sundered Bridge appeared before him and he sped the tour boat beneath the jarring gap in its span. Leaving the bay behind, he navigated the boat through the floating debris out into the wide open waters of the Pacific Ocean.
Keep going, he thought.
His rubbery legs gave out beneath him and he eased himself down onto the deck, guiding the wheel with just his fingertips. It didn’t really matter where he went now, just so long as it was away from the mainland… and his family. Darkness encroached on his vision and the sound began to drain away from the world as well. A comforting stillness, very different from the tumult he’d been enduring for days now, beckoned to him, offering him peace and quiet at last. All he had to do was let go.
He wondered if he would see his Mom and Dad again.
But a loud, whirring noise intruded on his hard won serenity. He frowned as the noise grew louder and more insistent, dragging him back into the world. His eyes, which had closed without him even noticing, flickered. He tilted his head back in annoyance.
What the hell?
Bizarrely, a voice called out to him, so faintly that it might just be a dream:
“… uuuu…”
Ford stirred, annoyed by the disturbance. A glaring white light shone into his eyes, forcing him to look away. He listened again for the unlikely voice. Had he actually heard something or had he just imagined it?
“… uuuuten…”
There it was again! Squinting into the glare, he saw a blurry object sweeping through the light. He tried to focus, but the blur wouldn’t stay put. It was there and gone, there and gone, there and gone. Like the tip of a helicopter rotor!
“LIEUTENANT!”
The voice shouted over the spinning rotors. The chopper’s backwash whipped up the air above the deck, scattering the splintered remains of the truncated cabin. Hundreds of empty shell casings danced atop the deck. Blinking in confusion, Ford dimly glimpsed a figure leaning out the chopper’s side-door, a megaphone before his lips.
“LIEUTENANT!”
The rescue ‘copter kept pace above the boat. Gloved hands seized Ford and looped his arms into a vest. Only half-conscious, he vaguely registered being lifted from the bloody deck of the boat into the light. Skilled hands hoisted him aboard the chopper, which immediately swung around and sped back toward the bay as fast as humanly possible. Slumped in the crew compartment behind the cockpit, he stared numbly back at the ocean.
The last thing he saw, before passing out, was a tremendous flash of light miles behind them. Night briefly turned into day.
A mushroom cloud rose above the Pacific.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Dawn found the devastated city on the road to recovery.
Fire crews worked tirelessly to douse fires, leaving blackened husks behind. Rescue workers helped shell-shocked citizens from the subway tunnels under the city. Volunteers scoured the wreckage for survivors. Emergency vehicles, their sirens blaring, braved the surviving streets. Helicopters airlifted casualties to neighboring hospitals. There was already talk of a website and televised concert to raise money for disaster relief. The president was supposed to be on his way.
Down by the waterfront, crowds of people began to gather near the prostrate body of Godzilla, coming to see the great beast for themselves. National Guards kept the onlookers at a distance, while TV journalists and camera crews reported live from the scene. Wandering amidst the other pilgrims, Serizawa overheard snatches of the reporters’ spiels.
“In a city spared from fallout by prevailing winds, many feel another force of nature protected them today…”
“Gathering here to witness the fallen creature in what may well be its death throes…”
Serizawa contemplated the downed leviathan, feeling privileged to be able to behold Godzilla in the flesh, after devoting much of his life to merely studying reports of such creatures. Even sprawled atop the demolished piers, appearing barely alive, the formidable mega-saurian was humbling to behold. Serizawa found it hard to believe that such as Godzilla could truly expire from his injuries, and yet there was a skeleton buried in the Philippines that proved that even the mightiest of predators was mortal. Death, too, was part of Nature’s grand design.
Was he truly witnessing the passing of a legend?
* * *
Blocks away, volunteers were excavating a buried BART station. A neighboring building had collapsed on top of the subway entrance, all but entombing it. Collapsed and
flooded tunnels had made reaching the station a challenge. It was unclear whether there were any survivors left below, but the crew hauled away the heavy wreckage, just in case. The leader of the crew was growing increasingly skeptical of their chances of rescuing anyone, but then, over the grunting of the workers and the incessant wailing of the sirens, he thought he heard something.
“QUIET!” he shouted.
A hush fell over the site. Straining his ears, he heard it again: a babble of voices calling faintly from beneath the rubble. The crew reacted immediately, clearing away the debris as fast as they could. Hope and excitement lent strength to their efforts. A huge chunk of fallen masonry was rolled out of the way, leaving only a layer of smaller rubble behind.
A hand thrust up from the ruins, reaching for the light.
* * *
News footage from the city played on the Jumbotron screen at Oakland Coliseum across the bay from San Francisco. A caption along the bottom of the screen identified Godzilla as the “King of Monsters.”
Sounds about right, Ford thought.
He and Sam wandered through the crowded stadium, which had been repurposed to serve as an emergency relief center for thousands of injured and displaced survivors. Ford cradled Sam in his arm while limping on a crutch. His twisted ankle had swollen up badly, but Ford couldn’t sit still, not until he found out what had happened to Elle. A grateful Admiral Stenz had offered to see that Ford and Sam got whatever care they needed, but Ford had insisted on being transported to the Coliseum so he could look for Elle. This was where they were bringing the bulk of the refugees, so this was where he needed to be. Bruised and bandaged, he searched the teeming stadium, looking in vain for his missing wife.
The bomb didn’t go off downtown, he reminded himself. She could have survived.