|
|
Registered User
Currently Offline
|
Posts: 376
Join Date: Oct 2008
|
BIG BLUE and ‘The Hunt’ chapter 3..
Character Created by Neo Gonzales Story by Wayne Clayton
An eerie hush fell over the valley as the new born sun slowly set into the barren earth as quickly as it had risen. The only witnesses to its creation were now nothing but dust floating in the hot arid air.
A mile away the Black Hawk ploughed through the air towards its epicentre.
“What the hell was that?” shouted Sam over the roar of the engines.
The General looked out towards the last fading embers of blue light his face pale.
“That Doctor was the Big Blue. The Atomic blast in the desert this morning was just a warm up. This is what gave Big Blue his name.”
“And what is the Big Blue exactly?”
“That’s the thing that was going to end World War II. The Brass at the time didn’t want to risk losing more American soldiers trying to take the Japanese mainland. They knew the Japanese would fight tooth n nail to defend it. Therefore they needed something BIG to end the war quickly. If Little Boy and Fat Man failed to make them surrender then Big Blue was the last resort.”
The General flipped the lid on his dented canteen and took a swig before carrying on.
“The plan was to drop Big Blue on Tokyo. His Atomic blasts were just for show and taking out the heavy defences. Shock and Awe as they say now, but we could have done that with fistful of A-bombs. No, as I say if two A-bombs didn’t make them surrender then no amount of mushroom clouds would shift them. Besides the Brass wanted to take Japan intact, not make it a wasteland for the next 1000 years.”
“What are you saying General?” ask Sam his mind beginning to reel.
“Big Blue’s ultimate mission wasn’t to make the Japanese surrender; it was to wipe them out, every last one of them and leave everything else standing pretty as if nothing happened”
Sam couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“That’s insane “he gasped. “What kind of monster would do that?!!”
“War can make monsters out of us all Doctor, in Blues case it took five years of none stop physiological conditioning. Hell he’d start foaming at the mouth just hearing the word Jap”
The General to another swig of water and spat it out, looking out once more towards the Valley of Fire as it grew closer.
“When the Japanese finally surrendered no one knew what to do with him. So they put him on ice and tried to forget all about him”
The helicopter flew in low over the valley and over the tour bus, now left empty and abandoned in the desert. The dust began to churn up as the down draft of the sweeping blades finally descended towards terra firma.
Once down the General signalled to the pilot and two gunmen to stay with the craft. Confident that all the hostiles were now nothing more then stains in the dirt.
Joined by Sam they made their way down towards Mouse’s Tank, watched only by the one eyed figures carved in the rock face on their never ending hunt.
As they got close to the Tank they saw it was no longer the shallow pit as show in the tourist guides which blew around their feet. It was now a dark void drilled into the fire coloured rock, its edges shape and crisp.
Suddenly to Sam’s amazement he saw a figure sprawled across the ground twenty yards from the Tanks edge.
“My God it’s Blue!” he cried as he began to run over to the body. As he ran he didn’t hear the General mutter a silent pray under his breath, nor see his hand reach down and unclip the gun from its holster before he too started to slowly walk over to join him.
Sam fell to his knees besides Blue and began to check for signs of life from the limp body.
“Is he alive?” ask the General is a slow and deliberate tone.
“Barely, but don’t ask me how?”
“Pity” said the General as he walked up around the back of the prone figure of Big Blue and drew his gun.
Lifting his arm slowly he aimed the gun at the back of Blue’s head. He knew this was the only chance he would get to put an end to it. For sixty years he knew this day would have to come. It was up to him to finally free Big Blue.
“I’m sorry Blue, I’m sorry it has to end this way, but I can’t let you leave here. You’re my friend and a Goddamn hero but you’re a living time bomb just waiting to blow, and I can’t let that happen.”
Turning Sam saw the barrel of the gun and in a flash he threw himself in between Blue and the General.
“What the hell are you doing? He just saved us from having our souls ripped out and sent packing off to God knows where, and you’re going to shoot him in the back? I thought he was your friend?”
The General barely looked at Sam has he replied his gun still focused on Blue.
“He was, but he’s a not a man any more. He’s a weapon that just looks and sounds like a man. What’s going to happen when this is all over? What’s going to happen when he’s out walking in the streets and cities in a world he doesn’t understand? What’s going to happen when a Japanese tourist bumps into him in the street?”
“He could be re conditioned.” Sam protested.
“You of all people Doctor know how fragile the human mind is, one slip and he’ll be blowing a hole into tomorrow. I’m not going to let that happen to him”
Sam looked on in horror as the General cocked the pistol readying to fire.
Suddenly the ground shook beneath them in slow rumbling wave knocking both of them of their feet. Seconds later a mass of rock and dirt erupted from the gaping mouth of the hole behind them, followed by the earth itself peeling back around it.
And finally with a raw pained scream the creature broke the surface, tasting the air for the first time in thousand eons.
It’s call echoing throughout the valley.
“CLLLLOOOOOOOOOOVVVAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNN!!!!”
|
