“Ford! Get back now!”
Ford heard his father shouting. Startled, he looked up to see Joe staring down at him from an elevated walkway. He couldn’t quite make out what his dad was yelling, but the utter terror on Joe’s face was clear enough. Metal scraped loudly against the pavement, throwing off sparks, as the collapsed crane surged toward Ford. Hundreds of tons of lethal metal and machinery threatened to flatten him like a runaway train.
He dived out of the way, forced to abandon the trapped operator. The crane swept past him, carrying the operator to his doom. Their eyes met briefly before the control booth, along with the rest of the crane, was yanked into the waiting pit. Ford wondered briefly if the man had a family…
Joe kept shouting at him from above. Scrambling to his feet, Ford looked up at his father again — just as the plummeting crane hauled down the entire elevated gantry Joe was standing on. Ford barely had time to register what was happening before the metal scaffolding collapsed, taking Joe with it. Crumpled steel landed in a heap at the edge of the giant sinkhole, atop a jutting concrete ridge.
“DAD!!!”
Ford rushed toward the wreckage, praying that Joe was still alive somewhere in the towering pile of debris. He couldn’t lose his father now, not like this! He needed to apologize to his dad for never really listening to him, for thinking he was crazy all these years. Who knew that it was the world that had gone mad — and that Joe Brody was the only person sane enough to see that?
The ruins of the collapsed gantry loomed before him. A thick cloud of dust and pulverized concrete rose from the debris. He was almost there—
Something huge and heavy slammed into the pavement in front of him, blocking his path. A glistening black column suddenly stretched high above his head. Stumbling backwards, it took Ford a second to grasp that what he was seeing was an enormous spiked claw, attached to a limb the size of a redwood.
No, he thought. It’s not possible. No animal can be that big!
Then another jointed black limb stretched up from the depths of the pit and smacked down on the ground several yards behind Ford.
And another.
And another.
Ford froze in terror. For a moment, all he could hear was his own breathing inside the gas mask and the rapid thumping of his heart. Nothing in his Navy training or combat experience had prepared him for the sight of the colossal creature rising up out of the darkness of the pit like a living mountain. An iridescent black exoskeleton, made of a hard shell-like substance, covered a vaguely insectile behemoth with at least six limbs of varying sizes. Two sturdy hind legs, with “backwards”-jointed ankles, supported the bulk of the creature’s weight, while a pair of elongated middle limbs extended from the beast’s armored shoulders. A much smaller pair of forearms, resembling those of a praying mantis, protruded from its upper thorax. Glittering red eyes peered out from beneath a flat triangular skull that almost looked like a rattlesnake’s. Saliva dripped from a huge hooked beak. The sheer scale of the creature beggared the imagination. It had to be nearly two hundred feet tall.
This was no mere “animal,” as his father had predicted. This was a monster.
The beast kept rising higher and higher, straightening to reveal its true, incredible size. Its titanic form blocked out the sky, hiding the stars. Its immense shadow fell across the sprawling base. Ford waited for the monster to squash him like a bug, but it paid no attention to him. Instead it hunched and grunted, heaving as though undergoing some kind of internal convulsion. Its armored back began to buck and bulge violently. For a moment, Ford allowed himself the hope that the monstrous creature was dying for some unknown reason. Perhaps an adverse reaction to the environment or the radiation in the pit? Or maybe the creature was simply too big to survive. Was it possible he was witnessing its death throes?
Please, Ford prayed. There’s no room in this world for a monster like this.
But then its molting back split open in two long parallel gashes, dozens of feet long. Glistening prongs of flesh emerged from the ruptured carapace, unfurling grotesquely into sleek black wings that reminded Ford of a stealth fighter. Blood pumped into the wings causing them to grow stiff and rigid. Thick veins supported a scaly membrane. They stretched and flexed, wet and shimmering. A hard black sheath, that appeared to be made of the same glossy substance as the creature’s exoskeleton, protected the underside of the wings.
No longer hunching, the creature rose up triumphantly, exalting in its metamorphosis. It bloodcurdling screech could probably be heard for miles away. Spreading its newborn wings, it took to the sky.
Awestruck, Ford watched it fly away.
But to where?
TEN
More than a day before:
Sam woke up. Sunlight filtered through the bedroom curtains as he yawned and stretched in bed. It was warm and comfy and he was in no hurry to get up until he remembered that his dad was home and had promised to take him to the toy store today. He sprang out of bed and scampered toward the door in his pajamas. Bare feet expertly dodged the toys strewn across the floor. He smelled pancakes cooking in the kitchen and grinned in anticipation. His mouth watered.
He loved pancakes — and so did his dad.
Yet when he rushed into the kitchen, expecting to find both his parents, he found only his mother cooking over a griddle. Confused, he looked around, but his dad was nowhere to be seen. He noticed that there were only two place settings laid out at the kitchen table.
He knew what that meant.
But he promised, Sam thought. He said he would still be here in the morning when I got up!
His mother heard him come in. She turned away from the stove to greet him. She gazed down at him sadly, forcing a smile. He didn’t need to tell her how he felt.
“It’s okay, babe,” she said gently. “He’ll be back soon.”
Sam didn’t understand. Had the Navy called Dad back already? He was supposed to be home for two weeks this time. Two weeks, not just one night!
His mom turned off the stove to comfort him. She knelt down and hugged him as she tried to explain why Dad was gone again.
“His daddy needed help.”
Now:
The sun rose over the ruined base. Black smoke rose from the rubble, darkening the sky. The toppled cranes remained where they’d fallen, even though emergency crews had begun the grisly process of carting away the remains (partial and otherwise) of the deceased. Severed steel cables hung in tatters from the edge of the sinkhole. Helicopters circled overhead, observing the devastation below. Survivors were being carried away on stretchers, even as first responders worked overtime to extricate more bodies from the debris. Collapsed gantries and scaffolding had turned the site into an enormous junkyard. Twisted steel beams jutted from the wreckage like abstract grave markers. Sobs and curses filled the air.
Ford wandered directionlessly through the ruins, ignored and forgotten amidst the disaster scene. His face was caked with soot and sweat. He’d discarded his gas mask and helmet hours ago; radiation poisoning had seemed the least of his worries. Every muscle ached and he felt black and blue all over. A loose pair of handcuffs still dangled from one wrist, which stung like the devil. He stumbled clumsily over the rubble, attempting to stay out of the way of the emergency crews. He’d been searching all night for his father without any luck. For all he knew, Joe was still buried beneath the debris.