Chapter 1
I get right out of bed. Breathe. It’s euphoric to fill my lungs with air, to release it. To be alive again.
Archimedes whines and I feed him. Make coffee.
Get my deck done for work and send it, because if I don’t, that means I’m giving up, giving in.
I finish packing. Take a quick shower, try not to think about drowning.
Drink some water through a straw, try not to think about drowning.
I look out the window and notice some rain clouds hovering in the distance.
Today’s never been rainy before.
I should leave early so I can search the woods, retrace my steps as best I can to find the wormhole. Tanya said it took her weeks. I don’t think it looked like anything; it’s not like there will be a neon sign over it marked Exit. The task before me looms large.
If I don’t find it today, what then? I wonder what horror my subconscious will manifest, or if I’m capable of redirecting the exotic matter or whatever the fuck Tanya was talking about.
She made it sound like I was inadvertently contributing to the happenings in the loop, that I’m connected to or influencing the “pocket universe,” but how?
By just existing inside it, by being me?
Please tell me again how I’m in a hell of my own making.
And what’s even left? Demonic clowns? Werewolves? Vampires? Ghosts? Bigfoot? I think about Bigfoot sauntering out of the woods during the cocktail hour and I don’t know. Maybe not Bigfoot. The only thing I know about the guy is that he’s the king of minding his own business.
The rain clouds. What if the horror today is a rainy outdoor wedding?
I should stop thinking about things.
“All right.” I set Archie up, then grab my phone, my keys, and my suitcase before I lose my nerve. Carry my suitcase down to the car, load it into the trunk. Climb into the driver’s seat. Plug my phone in. Pull up my playlist. Pull out onto the road.
And I try not to think about drowning.
I try not to think at all.
—
There’s traffic. There’s never been traffic before, but then again, I’ve never left this early. And it’s not unusual for there to be traffic in New Jersey. Just unusual for there to be traffic today.
I reroute the GPS, and it takes me a wild way through Jersey City that doesn’t seem any faster. I end up on 78, which also has traffic. It’s a parking lot.
The rain clouds have settled over Manhattan, over the upper bay. Tiny drops dot my windshield. Steph must be devastated.
If I were thinking about things, which I’m actively trying not to, I’d be thinking that the rain was a bad sign. A sign that—
My car shakes.
The road shakes.
The world shakes.
Great.
It happens again and my seat belt pulls tight across my chest.
People lay on their horns. I watch the guy in front of me get out of his car, walk around the front, and stare out at the bay. I follow his gaze.
There’s a strange wave coming toward us.
Every thought we have, every emotion, every decision we make, it ripples out into the universe. It informs the world around us, Tanya said. Inside the wormhole, our ripples are tidal waves.
I fucking swear, if this is a tsunami, if I drown again…nothing will happen because I have no recourse.
I lean over to look out my passenger side window. More people are getting out of their cars. Staring. Some are taking video on their phones.
I reach for mine. Open Google. My hands are unsteady, thumbs won’t cooperate, won’t type “Earthquake New Jersey” into the search bar.
Another tremor. A bad one.
Car alarms sound, windows shatter. One of the streetlamps tips, teeters for a moment before coming down on the sedan in front of me.
Some people run. Flight.
Some stand completely still, transfixed by the view of the bay, by the wave crashing over Liberty Island. Freeze.
I exhale, bury my face in my hands, curl into the steering wheel. There is no fight. How do I fight against a natural disaster?
I didn’t even get a chance to try today. Maybe the loop doesn’t want to let me out. What if, no matter how hard I try, I can never escape? What if all that’s left for me is this?
What if my story is a horror story?
The road beneath me slants, and I uncover my eyes, and I look, and I see.
There’s something in the bay.
Something giant. A building? A…
A dinosaur?
A giant fucking dinosaur?
Wait.
No.
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.