Jeremy Robinson - Island 731

But the creature didn’t press the attack. It just circled him slowly. Is it toying with me? he wondered. It did have feline attributes, but wasn’t sure if that was the case. Doesn’t matter , he decided, and charged again.

This time he never even got to lunge. The creature swiped its polar bear claws across his chest. The caked mud covering the paw and five sharp claws formed a dusty cloud at the point of impact.

Hawkins stumbled back.

The pain felt familiar. Dull at first. Then a sharp sting. Then a systemic reaction set all of his nerves on fire. All of this was followed by shock, which helped dull the pain, but also dulled his mind. He looked down slowly. His shirt was shredded and lay open, exposing his chest and stomach. Five red lines stretched diagonally across his torso intersecting the similar scars running in the other direction. Through the pain, he felt warmth spread down his chest. Blood. A lot of it.

But it could have been worse. The creature had sliced open his skin, but not fully. It could have easily cut through his rib cage, or removed his arm, or eviscerated him. Instead, it had decided to stun him, no doubt on purpose. Hawkins realized too late that he wasn’t just fighting a predator; he was fighting a predator with a human, or at least near-human, intelligence. And it wanted him to know it.

She’s evil , he thought. As much as she may have cared for Kam, she’s as tainted by this island as Bennett .

The revelation came too late to do any good. The long, black chameleon tail whipped around the thing’s body and wrapped around Hawkins’s legs. The creature yanked his feet out from under him. He hit the ground hard and started coughing. He could hear Joliet shouting, but couldn’t make out the words. The blurry shape of the monster hovered over him, raising its claws to strike.

He wondered if it would take off his head or open up his gut. Would it be a slow death? Or drawn out?

Then something new entered his vision. A body leaping over him toward the creature. For a moment he thought it was Joliet, but it was too large. And the shouting voice too deep. He saw a glint of metal. Then a second. The new arrival was armed! And swinging.

Hawkins pushed himself up as a surge of adrenaline cleared his mind. And then he saw him: Drake, swinging two butcher knives like a madman. He was covered in grime and dried blood. He was shirtless and his muscles glistened with sweat. It was like watching a vengeful spirit back from the dead.

Only Drake was far from dead. “Get up, Ranger!” the captain shouted.

Hawkins pushed himself up with a shout of pain, never taking his eyes off the action. The beast was on the defensive, shifting from side to side and stepping back. Hawkins saw blood dripping from the bear claw. Drake had wounded it and hadn’t backed down from the first moment.

“Thirty seconds!” Drake shouted.

Thirty seconds? Until what?

The creature let loose a pain-fueled roar. A long, slender digit spiraled through the air, landing at Hawkins’s feet. Drake had severed one of the aye-aye fingers!

And then he was flying through the air. Where the creature had been playing with Hawkins, he had no doubt it would now quickly rend them limb from limb as easily as he would a rotisserie chicken.

Hawkins turned to run, but a gun aimed at his chest stopped him.

Pulse, pulse .

Hawkins felt hot breath on his back. The creature stood right behind him, mere inches away from killing him, but stopped at Bennett’s command. Drake got to his feet, clutching his ribs, his knives gone. He stood next to Hawkins.

“To reward your bravery,” Bennett said, “I’ll allow you to choose how you’re all going to die.”

“Fuck you,” Drake growled.

“I was talking to Hawkins,” Bennett said. “So, what will it be? Should I let this little skirmish conclude and keep Joliet alive until I get bored of her? Or should I put a bullet in each of your heads right now, starting with Joliet and finishing with you?”

The answer was a simple one. Hawkins would rather them all die now, and quickly, than allow Bennett the chance to torture and mutilate Joliet. He’d only have to live with the pain of seeing her die for a few moments before he joined her. He was about to say as much when Drake clutched his arm. Hawkins looked into the captain’s angry and still confident eyes.

“I saw Bray,” the captain said, not quite a whisper, but still not loud enough for Bennett to hear.

“What was that?” Bennett asked, sounding annoyed.

Drake held Hawkins’s gaze, ignoring the threat. “You ready, Ranger?”

Bennett put the gun to Joliet’s head. “Answer now, or I’ll decide for you.”

“Give me five more seconds,” Hawkins said.

Bennett looked flabbergasted. “Five seconds? What do you need five—”

A bullet tore through his shoulder, spinning him away from Joliet.

Hell followed in the single round’s wake.

Between the rotor wash and the thunderous chop of the Blackhawk helicopter that had arrived just fifty feet overhead, it felt like a tropical storm had rolled in. Only it wasn’t rain falling from the sky, it was bullets. A single soldier, dressed in black Special Ops gear, leaned out of the open helicopter’s side door. He fired a blaze of gunfire from an assault rifle that just barely shook his shoulder.

The only thing that kept Hawkins, Drake, Joliet, and Bennett from being cut down was the fact that the soldier had seen Kaiju after taking the shot that clipped Bennett’s shoulder. Seeing the greater threat, he’d adjusted his aim and opened fire. But the monster was faster than the man expected and the rounds chewed up the earth behind its feet.

Bennett, eyes wide and on the helicopter, barely noticed Joliet climb to her feet and run to Hawkins. He clutched her in a tight, protective hug.

Five more helicopters surged past overhead. The Doppler wave of rotor chop was nearly deafening. Two split to the left, coming to a stop over the research building. Two more continued on course and a third arced to the right, heading for the farm. This is an island-wide invasion , Hawkins thought. They really are going to wipe everything out .

Joliet pulled back and shouted, “Let’s get out of here!”

“Not without Bray and Blok,” Hawkins replied, searching for some sign of their missing crew. Any second now…

Six thick, black ropes unfurled from the sides of the helicopter. Soldiers emerged and began sliding toward the ground. The man providing cover fire from the helicopter ran out of ammo and quickly reloaded. But the delay was time enough for Kaiju to change tactics.

The giant monster completed its dash in a tight turn, bringing it on course for the six defenseless men slipping down the lines toward the ground. It leapt in the air, impossibly high, and just before careening into the lowest man, flipped itself over. The man became a pin cushion as an array of oversized, neurotoxin-laced porcupine spines punctured his body armor, fatigues, and flesh. The beast continued its flip with the man stuck to its back. When it landed on all four legs, momentum carried the man forward. He was flung to the ground with several of the quills protruding from his body like he’d just had a close encounter with an Apache hunting party.

Without pause, the creature snapped its tail out and snatched a second soldier’s leg just before it touched down on the ground. The tail flailed back and forth, smashing the man to the ground three times. On the third strike, something cracked and the man never stirred again.

This wasn’t the same creature Hawkins had been fighting. That version of Kaiju had been like a mischievous cat toying with a mouse. This version was something closer to a whirlwind of wrath. As he watched each highly trained, heavily armed soldier die in seconds, Hawkins realized how lucky he was to still be alive.