One of the flying 'Spooks' hit the roof of the museum and detonated. Plaster fell, glass smashed, someone cried out. A smell of burning wood drifted through the room. Prescott ignored the hit and screamed to a radio man, "Get me a main line back east. They have to-" "General!" A soldier's shout managed to reach his ears above the sound of battle. Prescott followed the voice toward the patio, only to be greeted by fleeing men. "Stand your ground! We have to stop them on the beach!" How silly that sounded even to Tom's own ears as he saw the weapon Voggoth had sent against them.
It rose out of the water some five-hundred yards off shore. Rising…rising… impossibly big much like The Empire's own dreadnoughts, but the grotesque form of the beast made it far more hideous.
Prescott wandered onto the balcony, transfixed by the sight. He forgot about the bullets and enemy projectiles whizzing by; the tanks firing; the kamikaze 'Spooks' dive-bombing armored vehicles. He forgot about all that because he knew none of it made any difference anymore. He was already dead.
At that moment, he came to see all their efforts for the last ten years to be in vain; all the battles won insignificant. At that moment, General Tom Prescott understood that someday soon, the Earth would belong to Voggoth.
It stood a thousand feet tall on two massive pillars that functioned as legs, but the thing was far from humanoid. Those legs sprouted from either side of a tube like body that faced upwards with fibrous strands lining either side.
There did not appear to be a head, but two columns of granite-colored spheres that might be eyes lined what could be thought of as the chest. But that was not quite right, for the chest was more like a slug facing skyward held in place by thick tendons wrapped around and around.
Whether to blame his eyes or his mind, Prescott did not know, but he could not understand what stood in the Ocean before him like a walking skyscraper so tall its top tickled the clouds.
The General heard a sound very much like an air raid siren cranking louder and louder. He saw the top of the Leviathan shake and what appeared to be…yes it had to be… gusts of wind sucked out of the sky above and into the creature; the clouds nearly succumbed to the suction.
The tendons along its midsection expanded. Sacs dozens of feet in diameter puffed up all across the body in bubbles of red and brown.
The sound stopped. The world grew eerily quiet.
At first, it appeared to Tom that the creature began to fall. But no, only the upper half of it moved, kind of crouching forward as if peering down at puny ants scrambling around its feet. The top faced forward parallel to the ground; facing its human enemies.
Prescott saw no eyes, no mouth, no features other than a sickly round orifice large enough to swallow an aircraft carrier.
Then came another sound. It made him think of a fog horn.
The building shook. The ocean waters sloshed about in unnatural directions. Every molecule around Prescott trembled as if the air shivered.
Then the wind came, so fast it outraced its own sound; a wide swath of wind that first birthed a miniature tsunami but before the destructive waters could reach shore the supersonic blast sent the remaining tanks flying hundreds of feet into the air; ripped apart every building along the ocean front so thoroughly that nothing larger than splinters remained; and literally tore the skin off General Tom Prescott…
…Nina sat on her knees facing the television screen and slipped the DVD into the player. The homemade movie offered scenes from a party; a New Years Eve party nearly a decade before during the year she could not remember.
The audio offered a range of music including sounds from a piano as well as a larger band and even a polka at one point, or so she thought.
Then came a wobbly shot as the camera man circled around a table occupied by a group of friends. First on screen came Dante Jones; a much younger Jones than the one Nina saw in recent days in the newspapers and press conferences. "Hap-happy…what is it?…oh yeah, happy New Year!" The off-screen voice of the cameraman-possibly Jon Brewer, Nina thought-narrated, "And now to our love birds…" Her heart beat fast as the 'love birds' turned out to be Trevor Stone…and her. Damned straight!" Trevor shouted in a voice warped by vodka. "I love this woman!"
Nina's eyes darted back and forth at the images on the screen. Her heart raced. These were memories she should have. Seeing herself doing things that she did not remember doing…seeing Trevor sling his arm around her as she half-heartedly protested through a grin, "Oh stop, you’re embarrassing me."
A lump formed in her throat. It became hard to breath. The more she watched the more real it became; the more she understood what she had felt when the Old Man had linked her heart and soul to Trevor's. She understood those feelings because they were his feelings for her…and hers for him. "I love this woman. Completely. With everything I am." "Get a room!" Lori Brewer’s off camera voice shot. "Besides," Trevor continued. "You’re cute when you blush."
On screen, Nina let him pull her in, placed a hand on his cheek, and affirmed to him-to all of them, "I love you, too. I always will."
I always will.
They hammed for the camera with a big kiss and a cheek-to-cheek grin.
Nina grabbed the remote control but clumsily dropped it. When she finally reached it a second time, she rewound the DVD and played through the scene again. And again. And again…
…Trevor reached the roof of the White House and stood on the opposite end from his best friend.
Dante rocked side to side but did not flee. Instead, after much hesitation, he pulled his firearm-an automatic pistol-and pointed it across the space between them. Trevor walked toward Dante in determined strides. Dante fired. The spent casing hit the ground and rolled away. The bullet flew over Trevor's head like a warning shot. Trevor kept advancing. Dante fired again. Again the bullet flew overhead. Trevor's eyes remained locked on Dante as he closed the distance. The gun shook in Jones' hand. Another bullet fired. Another warning went unheeded. Trevor reached Dante Jones who still held the gun but the barrel-like the rounds he fired-pointed off target.
Dante did not move, he did not blink, he just stared at the man who had once been his friend. The man he had known since childhood. The man he had betrayed.
Trevor's lips pressed together, his eyes burned into Dante's, his chest heaved in and out as the two faced one another for the last time.
Stone reached with both hands and took hold of the burning barrel of the pistol and-while leaving it in Jones' grip-guided the gun directly to his head and let go. Trevor could feel the hot steel burn his skin. Dante need only pull the trigger to murder his friend but this time he would have to do so while looking him in the eye.
Jones at last blinked. His lip curled. Trevor's stare did not falter. His eyes dug into the conscience of Brutus.
Dante pulled the gun away from Trevor's forehead, put it to his own temple, and pulled the trigger. His body wavered for a moment, and then toppled over the edge falling to and rolling across the grounds below.
Evan Godfrey-once Trevor's greatest rival-remained pinned into the green ground of the White House lawn. A few feet away rested the dead body of Dante Jones, Trevor's best friend…
…The beastly war machines reached shore. Landing craft shaped like deformed whales opened, letting loose crawling Spider Sentries and hordes of cloaked, mutated monks. A pair of blob-like 'Chariot' craft swooped down from the heavens and flew in the midst of hundreds of smaller 'Spooks' screaming in agony as they searched for targets, but no targets remained.
The Leviathan towered above it all, stepping forward a quarter mile to a stride over a flattened Long Beach. Behind it more grisly ships sailed inbound, bringing with them the seeds of factories and farms to build thousands more such killers.