Dragon Island (17 page)

“Huh? Oh.”

Ishiro settles down onto the floor in a seated position. He hitches his knees up to his chest and places his sword and bow between them.

“Remember, Momotaro-sai, the fire. You must—”

“Yeah,” I say while in mid-yawn. “Keep it burning. I remember.”

Once I’m sitting up, he bows his head.

“I think we covered that enough already, Ishiro.

“Ishiro—?”

No response. He’s already asleep.

I turn and look at the fire. Its dancing flames are every bit as hypnotic as the moon’s pale glow. I feel my eyelids start to grow heavy, so I try to perk up. But the weight of my eyelids only grows heavier. But rather than serve as an annoyance, it feels like the beckoning promise of having your favorite ice cream on a warm, sunny day.

“No harm in resting my eyes just for a minute,” I mumble, the sound of my voice groggy in my ears.

I blink and when my eyes open, I know immediately that something is wrong!

The ever-present howl of the nocturnal kaiju has gone silent.

Our room is still bathed in moonlight, but the fire is now little more than a few dying coals amid a bed of ash.

I fell asleep!

My eyes dart about the room. In the moonlight, I see Ishiro is there, his chin resting on his chest. He’s still sound asleep.

If only I can get the fire going again before he—!

A noise cuts the night outside our room and I freeze. It’s a sound like the shake of a rattlesnake’s tail, or teeth chattering impossibly fast. Either way, it sends chills of sheer terror racing up my spine.

A second rattle sounds outside and I cringe in fear. Another rattle sounds, this one closer. Then another, this one closer still. My heart pounds so hard and so fast its pumping is audible in my ears.

I remember the grease gun I took from the Toho weapon house and reach out a trembling hand to scoop it up from where it lies on the floor beside me.

My hand closes around the gun’s grip. I snatch the submachine gun from the floor and yank it up against my chest. It shakes uncontrollably in my hands, its nozzle whirling at its end like a loose drill bit.

A rattle sounds directly outside the room’s open doorway. My bladder threatens to release in my pants, but I maintain at least enough control over myself to stop it.

I whimper with fear when two glowing jade eyes peek around the stone base of the doorway. The animal they belong to crouches there among the shadows on all fours.

The green-eyed thing sticks a tentative appendage inside. I spare a quick glance at Ishiro. He’s still sleeping away.

“Ishiro,” I whisper, trying to wake him without alerting the thing at our door. “Ishiro.”

He doesn’t move.

I quickly look back at the doorway to see the creature making its way inside. I swallow hard and slowly cock the grease gun, wincing at the unavoidable sound it makes.

The creature halts at the noise and fixes its swamp-gas gaze onto me.

My finger tightens around the grease gun’s trigger, but the fear tightening around my body keeps me from clamping all the way down.

The animal crawls forward into the moon glow and I see that it’s not an animal invading our room at all, but an Asian man.

Or rather, a mockery of one.

He is bent over backwards, his spine curving in the opposite way it was designed to so that his gray robe hangs from him like a loose death shroud. His appendages are bent at impossible angles so that he crawls on the backs of his hands and the sides of his feet like a nightmarish human crab.

But what’s most horrifying on him is his head. It’s inverted so that his chin occupies the place where his forehead should be and vice-versa.

His head slowly turns as though it were trying to right itself, then abruptly falls back down. It shakes there like a bobble-head toy for a moment, its laser-green eyes rolling in their sockets as it produces the terrible rattling sound.

That’s all I need to see and hear!

My finger closes the rest of the way down on the grease gun’s trigger.
 
But instead of rapid gun-fire, all the weapon produces is a faint clicking noise.

The creature cringes at the sound and crawls back a few steps, its actions an impossibly fast perversion of human motion.

Terrified, I yank the trigger again and again. The result is the same each time. I’ve enough presence of mind to check the gun’s safety. To my great disappointment, it’s already off.

The gun should be working.

A second twisted crawler appears in the window. It climbs inside to skitter along the wall like a giant, malformed spider.

Encouraged by this reinforcement, the first twisted man creeps forward.

I toss the grease gun aside and snatch up the Luger.

Safety off.

Aim.

Fire!

My heart sinks into my feet at the sound of another metallic click.

Then the enormity of my stupidity hits me.

These are both World War Two era guns. The Toho may have maintained the weapons well enough through the years to keep them from rusting, but there would’ve been nothing they could’ve done to keep the powder of the bullets from going bad.

I’m such an idiot! One whose stupidity has cost him his life!

The first crawler’s chin rises, opening its inverted mouth into an impossibly wide maw. It gives a netherworldly howl that leaves my spirit cold. Then the twisted man scrambles toward me on its jittering, crooked hands and feet.

With the recent sales explosion of books, films, and other media featuring strong female characters, women are at last beginning to receive their richly deserved due within the realm of pop culture...

—Excerpt from
Distressed Damsel No More!
, by Margaret Rickerd (2001)

T
ake back what I said earlier—sarcasm or not. I have absolutely no luck whatsoever here on Kaiju Island!

I’ve survived plane crashes, dragons, and monsters only to finally meet my end in the dead of night at the deformed hands—and feet—of a crawling, twisted man with fiery green eyes.

I scream as he springs into the air like a tiger falling upon its prey. Suddenly, blessedly, the man-thing explodes into a cloud of green smoke with an audible pop that leaves my ears ringing.

The cloud quickly dissipates to reveal Ishiro on his feet, sword in hand.

Before I can even think about thanking him, he whirls and swings his blade at the second twisted man just as the creature leaps from the wall. The blade bites and the crawler explodes into a cloud of green smoke that’s the exact twin of its predecessor.

Ishiro sheathes his sword and nocks his bow with an arrow in one seamless, fluid motion. He looks at me and snarls.

“I told you to keep the fire going!”

“Well—” I say, searching for a rebuttal, “you should have told me we would be attacked by Spider-man’s mutant-zombie-cousins if I screwed up!”

Ishiro may be quick with his sword and bow, but I’ve always been quick with my mouth. It’s gotten me into trouble on many an occasion.

Especially with Dad.

Numerous rattles sound outside our room.

“Pick up your coward’s weapons. You are going to need them against the Onryu!”

I shake my head.

“They don’t work,” I say, further frightened by the panic I hear in my voice.

“What?”

“The ammunition has gone bad!”

Ishiro nods in resignation.

“Then make peace with whichever daikaiju you pray to, Momotaro-sai.”

At that instant, dozens of twisted men—dozens of Onryu—surge into the room like a horde of driver ants, skittering toward us across the floor, ceiling and walls as their heads bobble and rattle.

Ishiro draws and looses arrows with machinegun speed and efficiency, dispensing one
Onryu
after the next in multiple puffs of green smoke.

But, no matter how good of a shot he is, Ishiro is only one and the Onryu are many.

One slips by the young warrior and yanks the bow from his hand.

Ishiro’s sword flashes from its sheath and the thieving
Onryu
falls along with several more of his brothers. But, at last, the Onryu overwhelm Ishiro and drag him down to the floor.

The rope tying us together yanks me down along with him.

The Onryu scamper across the floor, leap from the walls, and drop from the ceiling, falling upon me from every direction.

They seize me with what feels like a hundred hands. I scream as they pin me to the floor.

They look at me with ghostly green eyes, practically salivating.

“Bones to break,” the one closest to me titters, “a soul to take!”

He takes my tethered wrist in his deathly cold hand.

“Tasty!” he exclaims.

His mouth opens far beyond what should be capable for a human, even a deformed one. Then his head sinks toward my arm.

I scream, certain he is about to bite my hand off with that gaping maw of his. But he only comes away with a chunk of the ironweed rope in his mouth.

I blink in surprise as he slurps the last remaining piece from my wrist and swallows.

I’m free of my binding, but it’s too little too late!

The thought of Kumagor—the daikaiju dragon that answered Bear’s call inside the deep labyrinth—at last pushes through my panic into the forefront of my mind. I start to shout for him, but the talking
Onryu
clamps his hand down over my mouth.

He smiles, his grin huge and grotesque, and wags his finger in front of my face, reprimanding me as though I were a mischievous child.

The talker’s teeth part. I watch, tears streaming from my eyes as a tendril of green smoke snakes its way out of his throat toward my face.

Please, whoever is listening up there in the sky, I don’t want to find out what’s going to happen if that puke-green smoke touches me!

As if in answer to my thoughts, the Onryu shriek and spring away from me.

At first, I fail to realize what’s happening. My mind is so full of terror and amazement that it literally cannot process the information being communicated by my eyes.

After a moment, both my mind and vision clear—relatively speaking. I look up and see the Onryu are crowded in a dense huddle on the wall directly behind me.

They cower in terror at the sight of the blazing light produced by the twin torches Kitsune carries in her hands.

“Kitsune!” I shout.

I’ve never been so glad to see anyone in my entire life!

She nudges Ishiro with her foot, her eyes darting from the Toho warrior to the Onryu and back.

“Ishiro,” she asks, “are you okay?”

Ishiro moans in pain, but nods in response from his sprawled position on the stone floor.

Kitsune’s gaze fixes on the Onryu.

“Come, Raymond-sai,” she commands without taking her eyes off our attackers.

I scramble over and hide behind one of her legs so that we look like the reverse of a movie poster for some cheap, macho adventure flick.

With Ishiro and I out of immediate danger, Kitsune charges toward the Onryu, holding the torches out ahead of her like twin javelins.

The Onryu shriek and scatter, their heads rattling as they scramble over the walls and ceiling in a mad rush for the dwelling’s window and doorway. They cannot get away from Kitsune’s torches fast enough!

Kitsune chases them out the doorway and takes up a vanguard there. When the sound of the last rattle has vanished from the night air, she turns and approaches our defunct fire.

“What in Gryphina’s name where you thinking, letting your fire go out?”

Kitsune lays the torches on top of the ashes and begins piling on the twigs and sticks Ishiro and I gathered earlier in the evening to use as firewood.

I feel the blood rush into my checks and I slouch, trying to become as small as possible.

“You always blame me, Kitsune,” Ishiro spits. “But this time it was your little pet here, Momotaro.”

The piled wood catches fire and Kitsune rises to her feet. She whirls on Ishiro and jabs the air with an accusing finger.

“Do not try to throw this off on Raymond. You where supposed to be his protector!” Kitsune’s last word contains an especially harsh sting.

Sensing an opportunity to heap all blame onto Ishiro, I chime in.

“Yeah! What kind of yojimbo are you?”

“Be quiet!” they roar at me in unison.

I cower again, heeled like the pet Ishiro accuses me of being.

“I was protecting him,” Ishiro fumes.

“How? Like you protected her?” Kitsune asks.

Ishiro shakes his head in anger and frustration. He is at such a loss for words, when he speaks again, it’s to change the subject.