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Chapters (32)
  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. ONE
  4. TWO
  5. THREE
  6. FOUR
  7. FIVE
  8. SIX
  9. SEVEN
  10. EIGHT
  11. NINE
  12. TEN
  13. ELEVEN
  14. TWELVE
  15. THIRTEEN
  16. FOURTEEN
  17. FIFTEEN
  18. SIXTEEN
  19. SEVENTEEN
  20. EIGHTEEN
  21. NINETEEN
  22. TWENTY
  23. TWENTY-ONE
  24. TWENTY-TWO
  25. TWENTY-THREE
  26. TWENTY-FOUR
  27. TWENTY-FIVE
  28. TWENTY-SIX
  29. TWENTY-SEVEN
  30. TWENTY-EIGHT
  31. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  32. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

There it was again! Squinting into the glare, he saw a blurry object sweeping through the light. He tried to focus, but the blur wouldn’t stay put. It was there and gone, there and gone, there and gone. Like the tip of a helicopter rotor!

“LIEUTENANT!”

The voice shouted over the spinning rotors. The chopper’s backwash whipped up the air above the deck, scattering the splintered remains of the truncated cabin. Hundreds of empty shell casings danced atop the deck. Blinking in confusion, Ford dimly glimpsed a figure leaning out the chopper’s side-door, a megaphone before his lips.

“LIEUTENANT!”

The rescue ‘copter kept pace above the boat. Gloved hands seized Ford and looped his arms into a vest. Only half-conscious, he vaguely registered being lifted from the bloody deck of the boat into the light. Skilled hands hoisted him aboard the chopper, which immediately swung around and sped back toward the bay as fast as humanly possible. Slumped in the crew compartment behind the cockpit, he stared numbly back at the ocean.

The last thing he saw, before passing out, was a tremendous flash of light miles behind them. Night briefly turned into day.

A mushroom cloud rose above the Pacific.

TWENTY-EIGHT

Dawn found the devastated city on the road to recovery.

Fire crews worked tirelessly to douse fires, leaving blackened husks behind. Rescue workers helped shell-shocked citizens from the subway tunnels under the city. Volunteers scoured the wreckage for survivors. Emergency vehicles, their sirens blaring, braved the surviving streets. Helicopters airlifted casualties to neighboring hospitals. There was already talk of a website and televised concert to raise money for disaster relief. The president was supposed to be on his way.

Down by the waterfront, crowds of people began to gather near the prostrate body of Godzilla, coming to see the great beast for themselves. National Guards kept the onlookers at a distance, while TV journalists and camera crews reported live from the scene. Wandering amidst the other pilgrims, Serizawa overheard snatches of the reporters’ spiels.

“In a city spared from fallout by prevailing winds, many feel another force of nature protected them today…”

“Gathering here to witness the fallen creature in what may well be its death throes…”

Serizawa contemplated the downed leviathan, feeling privileged to be able to behold Godzilla in the flesh, after devoting much of his life to merely studying reports of such creatures. Even sprawled atop the demolished piers, appearing barely alive, the formidable mega-saurian was humbling to behold. Serizawa found it hard to believe that such as Godzilla could truly expire from his injuries, and yet there was a skeleton buried in the Philippines that proved that even the mightiest of predators was mortal. Death, too, was part of Nature’s grand design.

Was he truly witnessing the passing of a legend?

* * *