the soldiers were still winning, pushing the fight closer by the second. “Exciting, isn’t it? Just wait until we reach the mainland. We will have such fun!”
Hawkins noticed a backpack over Bennett’s shoulder and remembered the bottle labeled “active” he’d taken from the lab. If he had just one bottle of water tainted with those fast-growing chimeric blastocysts, the North American continent would be swarmed. The only thing that would save the rest of the world were the oceans and Panama Canal. If the creatures survived the cold, they might even be able to cross the Arctic ice to Greenland, Europe, and Russia. They would eventually burn through their food supply, overpopulate the northern hemisphere, and die out. Humanity might survive, but every country accessible by land or ice would be scoured clean.
Suddenly, the fuzzy chimera leapt from the ground, reaching its claws toward Kaiju’s eyes. But the small chimera never made it. The monster opened its jaws, caught the smaller creature by the back of its neck, and bit down. Death was quick.
Was Kaiju killing the children quickly on purpose? Was it being merciful?
“No!” Joliet shouted, stepping forward. “They’re your children! Don’t you remember that?”
“Her
Hawkins saw Lilly stir in a patch of grass. Without a second thought, he ran to her and knelt down. Bennett was distracted for the moment.
He looked into the yellow eyes. She bared her teeth and hissed. Hawkins nearly retreated, but then her features softened and a slight smile formed. “You came,” she said.
“Sorry about what I said. About everything,” Hawkins whispered. “I didn’t understand.”
She looked into his eyes, squinting, and then nodded. “Okay.”
Hawkins reached down and picked the girl up. She was covered in dense but soft fur, black as night, but she had the body of a human five year old. Hawkins grunted as he lifted her. She was heavier than a human. The girl clung to him as he hustled back to the others. He handed Lilly toward Drake. Man and chimera-girl looked at each other, uncertain. But when she reached out for him, Drake took her, his muscles holding her weight better than Hawkins’s. In exchange, Hawkins took the knife.
“Please tell me you didn’t come here for them?” Bennett said. A bullet pinged off the cement by his foot, making him jump.
The battle was close; just one hundred feet away, separated by a thin smattering of palms and a shrinking army of chimeras. Hawkins noticed that no more draco-snakes were coming out of the jungle. The reinforcements had run out. Of course, neither side of the conflict knew that a third, far more overwhelming force would soon arrive. Hawkins glanced uphill. The spiders had yet to crest the top.
“Kam asked me to,” Hawkins said, but he didn’t speak to Bennett. He spoke to Kaiju. “You hid them from Bennett because you cared about them. And Kam cared about them. Called them brothers and sisters. Saving them was his last—”
“Kill them!” Bennett shouted.
Kaiju charged.
Hawkins turned to the others. “Get to the boat. I’ll meet you there!”
“Mark, no,” Joliet said.
“Bray, take her!”
Bray wrapped a big arm around Joliet’s waist and hoisted her up. Drake led the trio toward the jungle and ocean beyond, following a diagonal path away from Bennett, but closer to the fighting soldiers. Joliet kicked and screamed. Lilly just clung to Drake, staring back at Hawkins with sad eyes that revealed she believed she’d never see him again. When he saw her eyes widen with fear, he knew he’d watched them too long.
Hawkins was lifted from the ground, clutched around the ribs by Kaiju’s aye-aye hand. Despite the crushing pain, he managed to hang on to the butcher knife. With a shout, he brought the knife down and plunged it into the monster’s shoulder. The sharp blade slid through skin and muscle, three inches deep.
Kaiju let go of Hawkins, but it wasn’t all good news. The nine-foot-tall beast had lifted him up, nearly over its head. He fell hard to the ground at her feet. He struggled to stand, but was backhanded by the polar bear claw. The strike sprawled him to the ground and knocked the knife from his hand.
The aye-aye hand found him again, this time hooking its four remaining claws into the skin of his back as it slammed him to the ground.
Kaiju roared and leaned in close. Its jaws opened wide enough to envelope and bite off Hawkins’s face. He squirmed for freedom, turning his head away from the open maw. But Kaiju never bit down. He could feel and smell the hot, rancid breath on the side of his face, but the attack had stalled.
“Son.”
Hawkins flinched at the sound of Kaiju’s voice. It had a deep rumble to it as he expected, but there was also a trace of femininity. He turned to face her.
“My son,” she said.
Hawkins wasn’t sure if she was asking a question or claiming him as her own. There were no inflections to her voice, just words. “Kamato,” he said, thinking she would recognize him by his full name.
“You say Kam,” she corrected. “Where son.”
Still no inflection, but Hawkins knew it was a question. Hawkins wasn’t sure how to answer that. Hell, any answer might end with him being crushed to death. And if he told the truth?
Kaiju picked him up off the ground and slammed him back down. He coughed and wheezed, trying to catch a breath against the force of her grip.
“Kill him!” Bennett shouted. The sounds of battle were painfully close. “We need to go!”
“Where,” Kaiju growled.
It was clear that if Hawkins didn’t answer, she’d kill him anyway. Not only was the truth his best chance at surviving, but she also deserved to know her son’s fate. “Dead.”
Kaiju’s grip tightened.
“How.”
Hawkins could barely breath, let alone speak. “Stabbed,” he wheezed. “Bennett. Bennett killed him.”
The pressure fell away as Kaiju let go. The three-foot quills on her back rattled and shook. With a snarl, she turned back toward Bennett.
“What are you doing?” Bennett shouted. “Kill him!”
Hawkins sat up, clutching his chest. “She knows. About Kam.”
Bennett looked mortified.
Kaiju took a step toward him.
He stepped away. “Kaiju. You know I wouldn’t do anything to hurt Kamato. He was my brother.”
“Not brother!” Kaiju shouted. “Son!”
The giant monster got just two steps into her charge when—
Hawkins eyed the small remote in Bennett’s hand. He was no longer pushing it continuously. The battle was all but over. In fact, some of the soldiers were now headed their way, weaving through the trees, aiming their weapons.
“Kaiju,” Bennett said. “It doesn’t matter whether or not you like what I’m telling you to do. It doesn’t matter if I just had you kill your children, or that I put a knife in Kam’s chest. All that matters is that you obey. Now, kill him.”
Hawkins put all of his strength into the throw. The blade glinted in the sun’s light, looking like an oblong strobe light as it crossed the distance. Hawkins had remembered the knife blade still tucked away in its sheath. Without a handle, it would have made a poor weapon choice against Kaiju. But against a man, at a distance, the blade worked just fine.
