Read Kaiju Rising: Age of Monsters for Free Online Page B

her city. Thousands were already dead. Soon, the casualties would number in the tens of thousands. Then the hundreds of thousands. There had been no evacuation. There had been no time to move over two million people and nowhere to send them. Those who could had taken refuge in basements and underground car parks. Most people had no choice but to hide in their homes. Now those homes burned and fell. Some, that the Eschaton smashed with its fists, flew as they disintegrated.
    She saw the world ending at the hands of a being so huge that to see it was to know it as the source of awe. She knew that Bickford was right, but still, even now, she held back the full realization. If she followed her thoughts to their inevitable conclusion, she might not be able to fight any longer. Perhaps her brother was also lying to himself.
    She headed south, dodging flames and climbing over wreckage until she reached an area that was still undamaged. She found more fragments of her battlegroup there. She commandeered a Panther Light Multirole Vehicle. Evans drove.
    “Manchester Stadium,” she told him, then got on the radio. It took her a few minutes to contact the crew of a viable M270, but she found one, and directed the launcher to meet up with her at the stadium. She would give Bickford his holy weapon. “Do not engage,” she ordered. “Am I clear? Your arrival on-site is the priority.”
    The streets were clear of civilian traffic, and they made rapid progress up Stretford Road. Caldwell looked out the passenger window of the LMV. In the gaps between blocks, she watched the Eschaton’s progress. When they reached the open area at the intersection with Princess Road, she asked Evans to stop.
    To the north, she witnessed the Eschaton reach Beetham Tower. The sleek glass monolith, the tallest skyscraper in Manchester, was gossamer-thin before the monster. The Eschaton looked down on it. Its four arms grasped the building. The monster ripped the upper two-thirds of the tower from their base. It raised the building over its head, then hurled it to the ground. The impact shook the city. The Eschaton turned then, breathing annihilation around a full 360 degrees. Caldwell looked away when the flames rose. Sandra’s apartment was just off St. John’s Gardens. The neighborhood had just ceased to be.
    “Let’s go,” she told Evans. She tried to take comfort in the knowledge she wouldn’t have time to grieve for very long.
    The Panther arrived in Sports City. The M270 was there less than five minutes later. Caldwell stood beside the LMV and listened to the prayer rise in waves from the interior of the stadium. She felt her jaw clench. The old anger was still there. Bickford’s faith would never be hers. The best she could do was hope his was well-placed.
    Inside the stadium, the lights were on, and Bickford’s amplified voice resounded. He had managed to have generators installed. The stands were full. There was barely room on the field for the vehicles to maneuver. Bickford was on a stage before the north stand, leading a choir of fifty thousand in hymns of praise. Caldwell had never seen her brother in full flight before. She had known he was successful in his calling. He had been leading his own army for years now. But on those rare occasions they had crossed paths during their adult lives, he had still been the quiet, kind brother who was too willing to defer to authority.
    She wondered whether anything was different now. As he worked the stage, she saw power, confidence, a commanding ecstasy, and all of it was in the service of another Authority. The enveloping rush of tens of thousands singing in unison was intoxicating, and it was easier for her to believe, in this moment, that hope could be real. She clung to her duty to try anything to save the city. It was her shield against despair, against mourning, and against a darker belief that, as it threatened to emerge from the darkness, had the terrible contours not of faith, but of