“Is… Is that thing alive?”
Koichi could only stand there dumbstruck at the sight of this preternatural behemoth. Was this that Godzilla creature the others had mentioned?
The beast bellowed in protest at the glare from the searchlight, then charged forward as if to ram its massive body into the watchtower. In what felt like the blink of an eye, the tower toppled over, crumbling to the ground along with the searchlight and its operator.
“Taki!”
“No… Not Taki-san…”
Several members of the maintenance crew cried out Taki’s name in horror and disbelief, but there came no reply. And as the creature continued its rampage, it stepped right into a stockpile of oil drums filled with gasoline, crushing them underfoot. Their fuel was set alight in a giant blaze by the electrical sparks from the shattered searchlight, and the resulting blaze cast an orange glow onto the beast’s imposing form, revealing angular scales that lined its epidermis and twinkling golden pupils. Koichi could only watch in horror as the beast known as Godzilla walked right through the fire and flames, step by lumbering step, utterly undeterred by the explosion.
“Quick!” shouted Tachibana. “Take cover!”
At Tachibana’s signal, all of the engineers and Koichi scrambled over to a trench that had been dug out along the coastline and dove down into it. Peeking up over the edge, they could see Godzilla slowly turning its head from side to side, as if searching for any remaining humans. But the light from the gasoline fire seemed to be obstructing its vision, as it didn’t appear to have seen them flee, or to where.
Tachibana looked at Godzilla—then at Koichi’s plane.
“Shikishima-san,” he said. “Do you think you can make it over to your Zero fighter and shoot it with your 20mm cannons?”
Koichi just stared at him, mouth agape.
“You’re the only one who can do any real damage to that thing,” said Tachibana. “We’re just mechanics here, and these cheap rifles won’t even put a dent in it.”
“But, sir…” Koichi stuttered.
“Quick, while he’s still looking the other way!”
“What if even those guns can’t take it down? Won’t it just get even angrier?”
“I don’t care how big that thing is, there’s not a creature alive that a few 20mm rounds can’t make into mincemeat! Now go!”
After being practically shoved out of the trench by Tachibana, Koichi could only swallow his better judgment and hurry over to his plane. The thought of firing at that thing, even with a 20mm cannon, felt completely insane. Surely, it would be safer to just lie low and wait for Godzilla to grow weary of its rampage and then return to the sea. But Tachibana had a point—perhaps a gun of that caliber could fell the beast. And if Koichi was the only one here who could save these men from a gruesome death, then maybe there could be some sort of meaning to his failure as a kamikaze.
Taking great care to make as little noise as possible, Koichi climbed into the cockpit of his plane, put his hand on the throttle, and gripped the handle of its firing mechanism. But even this faint sound did not go unheard by Godzilla, who quickly turned and thrust its head down to Koichi’s level as it searched for the source of the noise. Then, when it was only meters away from the plane, it stopped—its ferocious eyes seeming to stare directly into the cockpit for several agonizing seconds, as if considering Koichi. Koichi couldn’t say for certain if Godzilla was truly looking at him or not, but he knew that if he made one false move, the beast could swat him like a fly or crush both him and his plane beneath its sheer mass.
He shrunk down in his seat, his entire body stiffening. Every fiber of his being was screaming at him not to pull the trigger. He knew, instinctually, that if he took a shot at this behemoth right now, it would be the last thing he ever did. This was not a creature that humans had any business messing around with; humans were the prey in this equation, and he knew it full well. All he could do was stifle his breathing and pray for dear life as he waited for the beast to move on.
But over in the trenches, Tachibana was growing impatient.
“What the hell is he doing?” the man spat under his breath.
Godzilla’s face was now directly in the plane’s line of fire.
Yet still, Koichi didn’t pull the trigger.
“Now!” Tachibana said in a harsh whisper. “Shoot! Shoot, goddamn you!”
But this muffled order went unheard and unheeded until, eventually, Godzilla turned its massive head and took a few slow, heavy stomps in the opposite direction—this time toward the trench where all the mechanics had been watching with bated breath. The young men began to panic as it approached. Even Tachibana’s fight-or-flight response kicked in; he briefly considered ordering everyone to retreat into the wooded hills to the side of the trench. But he knew Godzilla would surely give chase if they tried to escape now, and there was no way his men would make it out alive if this monster made up its mind to hunt them down. Plus, it was heading toward the coast already; perhaps if they kept their heads down, it might give up and return to the sea.
Yet even this faint hope was snuffed out by the sudden sound of gunfire.
Unable to bear the suspense any longer, one of the younger engineers had taken aim with his Type 99 bolt-action rifle and shot at the beast—which the other men then took as their signal to open fire on it as well.
“Don’t shoot, you idiots!” Tachibana shouted, but to no avail.
Their fear had made them trigger-happy, it seemed—but this barrage of rifle rounds did little more than elicit another earth-shaking roar from Godzilla and send the beast rushing in a rage directly over to their hiding place with incredible speed.
“Get out!” cried Tachibana. “Everybody, out!”
This snapped the other men back to their senses, but they had little time to escape from the trench before Godzilla crushed it underfoot. Tachibana had just barely made it out, though he wouldn’t make it far. A heavy wooden beam that was split and sent flying by Godzilla’s impact hit him right in the leg, crippling him. Seeing Tachibana struggling to crawl his way to safety, one of the younger men rushed back and tried to help him.
“Tachibana-san!” said the young man, offering his shoulder. “Are you oka—”
The very next moment, a shriek of terror drowned out his words. Then even that scream was muffled as Godzilla leaned down and clamped its jaws around the engineer’s upper body, then with a toss of its head flung the man high into the air.
The other engineers could only stand there shaking, clasping their rifles in fear, as Godzilla decimated their ranks, trampling them beneath its massive feet, flinging them similarly skyward, or even crushing them with its enormous tail—a single swipe of which took out the entire command post, along with the few soldiers who’d fled into it to take shelter. Koichi could only sit and watch in dumbstruck horror from the seat of his cockpit as this carnage played out in front of him.
Was this all his fault? Could he have saved those men had he just pulled the trigger?
As he sat there questioning his decisions, Saito, the engineer who’d offered Koichi some sympathy at the beach earlier suddenly ran out in front of his plane.
“Here, I’ll lure it over!” Saito shouted. “Shoot it with those 20mm cannons!”
But no sooner had he finished his sentence than the beast scooped him up between its fangs and launched him, shrieking, to his certain death.
This was enough to finally break Koichi, who jumped out of his cockpit and started sprinting as fast as he could away from the monster, screaming at the top of his lungs. Godzilla opened its massive jaws as wide as they could go, then clamped them down on the hull of the Zero fighter before sending it flying in Koichi’s direction. As the plane hit the ground, its remaining fuel ignited, and it burst into flames with a huge explosion. Even running as fast as he could, Koichi couldn’t escape the blast, the force of which threw him face-first into the ground. All he could smell was the scent of his own blood.
With unquenching fury in its eyes, Godzilla gazed out over the sea of flames its rampage had caused, then let out a roar of victory. Koichi could only watch in dazed disbelief for a few moments longer, before he finally blacked out.
When he finally came to, the first thing he felt was the touch of grass against his cheek. He could hear the sound of waves gently rolling in the distance. For a few moments, Koichi wasn’t sure what had happened to him or why he was lying on the ground outside, but the smell of distant smoke served as a harrowing reminder, and he quickly scrambled to his feet to assess the situation in the early morning light.
Not far from where he’d fallen unconscious lay the scorched remains of his Zero fighter, still slightly smoldering. And just beyond it, he could see a man dragging something along the ground in a hammock that had somehow survived the fire. It was Tachibana.
“You poor boys…” he muttered to himself. “You didn’t deserve this…”
As the sun crept up over the horizon, bathing the island in its light, Koichi could see that the man had been lining up the corpses of the dead—of which there were far too many. Some had been crushed so beyond recognition that Koichi couldn’t even tell whether they were lying face up or face down. Some were missing limbs. Others were missing heads. Some had been split in half, while yet others’ eyes were still wide open in agony and horror. All of them had been arranged in a neat little line by Tachibana. Having to stare down at the result of the previous night’s carnage made Koichi’s knees give out from under him. But Tachibana remained standing, almost as if he was completely unaffected by the sight.
“Hey,” he said, looking down on Koichi from above. “You haven’t seen this guy’s lower half anywhere, have you? I can’t seem to find it.”
Koichi didn’t respond. He simply started hyperventilating.
“Why, Shikishima?” asked Tachibana. “Why didn’t you shoot like I told you? If you’d just listened to me, they’d…they’d still be…”