Page 116 of Kiss Slay Replay

Another tremor, and suddenly there are splinters of glass in my hands. A ringing in my ears. People screaming.

“Holy shit! It’s Godzilla!”

My airbag deploys, punching me in the face. Blood fills my mouth. I cough, push the airbag away, try not to panic about the shards of glass sticking out of the back of my hands from my obliterated windshield. I open my door and fall onto the road, leaking blood from my nose, from everywhere, shaking the broken glass from my lap, out of my hair.

Someone running by knees me in the head, and I cry out in pain. No one can hear me over the screaming. Over the car alarms. Over the chaos.

I stumble forward, totally disoriented, using my side view mirror to pull myself to stand. I have no idea where to go or what to do. The street erupts in deep cracks, the pavement jagged, destroyed. Bay water floods in.

The thing out there, the colossal lizard-esque monster, moves through the water like it’s nothing. It’s nimble for its size. It’s not in a hurry, but it’s so enormous that every step it takes brings it so much closer. It dwarfs the Statue of Liberty. It has long arms, which is disconcerting. I thought Godzilla had short arms, that dinosaurs had short arms. But this thing isn’t Godzilla, and it isn’t a Tyrannosaurus. It’s worse. Spiky. Horned. Ugly. Agile. Hyperaggressive.

Its reptilian fist collides with Lady Liberty, knocking her clean off her podium. She hits the water, and then she’s gone.

The creature roars, and I know I complained about the flower sprites, but this? The sound brings me to my knees. Dirty water blasts past me, carrying pieces of trash and chunks of pavement and more broken glass.

Is it even worth trying to survive? What’s the point? Anytime I find a shred of hope to cling to, to get me back on my feet, I get knocked down again. Every piece of me is tired, wrung out. I stare down at the filthy water. Do I give up? Is that just what I do? Is that who I am?

Another roar. Jets. They zoom overhead, swoop in.

The current drags me away from my car, and my back hits against another. I get my legs under me, and I climb on the hood of this hatchback for higher ground, to watch what’s happening in the bay.

The jets open fire on the monster. Explosions light up its dorsal spikes. All that does is agitate it. Its tail whips up and takes out one of the jets, which maydays toward Ellis Island. It combusts on impact, sputtering flames and smoke into the air.

The monster aggressively fights off the jets, batting them out of the sky. They explode, spiral down into the water. I can feel the heat of the fire on my face.

It’s astonishing. I’m arrested in terrible awe of the creature’s enormity. It’s closer now—the nuisance of the attacking jets causing it to head toward Liberty State Park. I can see the texture of its skin, its scales puckered and hard—almost like scabs. Colossal scabs.

There’s a guy standing on the SUV behind me livestreaming. “It’s a legit, motherfucking kaiju! Let’s goooooo!”

He seems pretty jazzed, and it makes me sad. Sometimes annihilation is right in front of us, and we just cannot recognize it, cannot accept it until it’s too late. What a fool.

Or maybe I’m making unfair assumptions about him; maybe part of me is jealous of this guy for facing a monster with enthusiasm instead of fear. For not cowering in the shadow of death.

The creature roars again as it strikes down another jet. I can’t tell the difference anymore between the clouds and the smoke. A jet flies right into its face. Crashes right in its face.

The monster spins back in thundering anguish.

It’s hurt.

But it’s not down.

And it’s not going down.

It lifts its head, unhinges its jaw. I anticipate another roar, but it makes a different sound. A wickeder sound. A kind of clicking, like the way up on a roller coaster. The monster jerks back, and something about its posture reminds me of Archimedes when he’s about to cough up a hair ball.

There’s a glow. A brightness coming from its throat. I know because I have a direct line of sight, because the thing is facing this way.

Suddenly, the world smells like a struck match.

Oh.

Fuck me.

I’m about to be burned alive by fire breath.

A torrent of flames hurtles toward me. A hungry orange mass that turns my eyes to blisters and scorches my last breath.

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