"Hey Johnny! Check this out! I think it twitched!" Gunther called out. Poking one of the giant monster caterpillar's legs with the butt of his rifle.

"Dammit man! Stop tempting fate! That thing's farts could be radioactive for all your dumbass knows! Get away from there!"

Gunther, did not look convinced.

But Gunther was an imbecile.

I may not have been the brightest guy myself, but I had cousins who were doctors and chemists. People who worked in virology labs with chemicals that had very ominous sounding names.

One time, two of them had been speaking in hushed tones over some wildlife specimens they'd caught. A wild boar that seemed to shrug off low-caliber rounds as if they were toy pellets. The thing had apparently broken out of containment and made a mess of the lab it was kept in, as well as three other adjacent labs. Even going so far as to crash through a shelf containing all kinds of chemicals with even scarier sounding names. Things like Bromine or Hydrochloric acid.

They had said that the boar had shrugged those off too. A fact that seemed to scare them, even more than the story about the bullets.

'And now we have a literal kaiju running loose.' I thought sourly. 'Only one so far, but that's probably subject to change. That thing took a bunch of HIMARS and a literal artillery barrage from both land and air and it still kept moving for a little while after.'

The people who were often terminally online were saying that it was magic. Though those people were also the kind who said that corporations had bought out government figures and that the president was secretly a lizard person and that North Korea's leader had recently been assassinated and replaced with a body double.

'They will say all kinds of nonsense for attention.' I decided.

The more likely scenario was that some corporation or another had been dumping illegal toxic waste down here for decades upon decades. The kind of radioactive sludge that turned animals into mutants and turtles into pizza-loving ninjas.

'Marie Curie was an expert.' I recalled. 'And Marie Curie is dead as a doornail. Radium poisoning left her dead as a doornail. Her, and all the other pseudo-experts and hucksters that peddled miracle cures based on radiation.'

I dimly recalled hearing about some guy, an athlete of some kind, who took a bunch of Radium treatments back when that was still somethin sane people thought was a good idea.

'The man was buried in a lead casket, if I'm remembering things correctly. His jaw sloughed off like week-old pudding. And while he was still alive to boot.'

Some people said that these new fruits and vegetables were proof of magic, because they tasted like heaven on earth and left you toned as a runner while also curing things like Cancer. Even for advanced cases. All while the people eating them didn't need to poo them out.

'Fools.' I thought again. 'Gullible fools. Nothing could possibly be that good. This is probably the result of some marketing campaign. It's all snake oil and snake oil salesmen. They will see that soon, when the side effects start to appear.'

"Dammit Gunther I told you to stop poking that thing!" I yelled as my fellow soldier somehow got it into his head to start cutting at the thing's skin with his combat knife.

The blade was thick, sturdy and long. And deadly sharp besides. The kind of thing that could be used to slice through reenforce ropes in a pinch and to gut an enemy soldier who didn't take the hint that close-quarters combat was a very bad idea.

Gunther poked it. Again and again. But he did not manage to leave so much as a scar.

He actually had the nerve to look disappointed at that.

'Lucky idiot.' I thought with mounting fury. 'That thing could have bled out flesh-eating bacteria or acid or mustard gas for all you know. You're lucky to be alive.'

Some time ago, some person was the first-ever victim of Denge fever or West Nile Virus or whatever. That guy most definitely did not have a good time.

Watching Gunther now, all I could think off was him getting caterpillar flu or whatever and ending up in the hospital with bubbling green pustules bursting all over his face.

Any other man would have found such a fate cathartic. Only I knew he'd be taking loads of other people with him if whatever he caught happened to be contagious.

Gunther noticed my stare and flashed me a cocky grin.

"Now now! Don't get like that with me Johnny!" He called out. "It's not my fault you're scared of bugs!"

His grin grew more impish. More mocking.

"Tell you what! I'll be the bigger man and I'll let you stand back while I take point. I'll keep you safe from all the creepy crawleys in there!"

The comment made me furious, but only for a second. If there really was some great big monster down there waiting to bite our heads off, then the last thing I wanted was to take point myself.

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Gunther might have been cursed with half a rotted peanut for a brain, and all the cunning of an old koala with chlamydia, but if he was offering....

Well. Then declining him would be almost as foolish as imitating him.

Almost.

"All right then. After you." I motioned to the hole in the ground. "There doesn't seem to be a need for stairs or ropes right now. It's a pretty easy incline. I'll be standing guard right behind you."

'Ready to bolt the other way once a giant wasp has laid its eggs on your dumb ass.' Went unsaid

I had seen very few documentaries of late, but the last one I'd seen was about the so-called Emerald Wasp.

A delightful little critter that reproduced by zombifying roaches, before impregnating them and buggering off somewhere else. The roach would survive... for a time. Until all those fertilized wasp eggs began to hatch.

One by one.

Until they all began to devour the roach from the inside out. All while the roach was helpless to stop them.

Supposedly, the larva was inherently smart enough to leave the vital organs for last, so as to extend the roach's life, and its suffering, for as long as possible.

'Yes. No. No thank you sir. Better you than me. I've seen Extraterrestrials enough times, thank you very much. I don't fancy myself a mother just yet.'

Miraculously, Gunther stopped at that. Paling, as his face turned to the dark, ominously large hole in the cement.

'Well at least there might be hope for him yet.'

"Reynolds! Redfort! Stop touching each other's parts and get over here!"

My body moved on instinct. Turning around and lugging my equipment to where captain Moor. was standing. Next to him were several more officers, as well as actual, proper soldiers. Armed with guns that made ours look like BB guns and body armor that came straight out of a movie.

I cringed a little upon seeing them. My right leg getting those jolts of phantom pain again at the spot where the shrapnel had dug in.

'Bloody landmines.' I thought bitterly. 'Three surgeries and the pain is still there.'

The newest doctors I'd seen had told me it was all in my head. The old one had told me it was nerve damage and there was nothing they could do. These days, I preferred to listen to the new ones, if only because that left me some hope that it might get better someday.

'But these kids don't look like they've come across any landmines in some country they can't pronounce or find on a map.' I observed. 'If anything, they look fresh off the boat. Fancy new soldiers in fancy new uniforms. Getting their hands on a few fancy guns for the first time.'

That was worrisome.

Nothing bad about it in principle, as everyone would need to start somewhere and these guys at least looked like they'd had proper training with how those muscles bulged out and how easily they carried those backpacks around.

In practice, well... There had always been a certain hesitation in my old unit when we were getting new guys in. They always seemed surprised by the reality of the job.

That is, how it was mostly sitting around in a big expensive super-armored car waiting for something, anything, to happen. All while baking under the sun and staring at big empty fields where nothing and no one moved.

The boredom was crushing. Almost as much as the sun or the humidity. It made them lazy and complacent.

So much so that they seemed genuinely surprised after stepping on a landmine and getting themselves torn to shreds.

'Not now.' I chided myself. 'Not right this moment. There ae more important things to focus on.'

"We'll be helping." The captain informed us as soon as we'd gotten closer.

"Sergeant Martin here will lead his men inside. They will go down the tunnel and see where it leads. Within reason of course. We have some witnesses that claim some of the people who went in haven't come out yet, and the army units don't have enough men on hand to take on the operation themselves."

I looked back at the soldiers. Realizing that there were a couple of dozen of them. At most.

'Ah.' I realized. 'All the guys in the helicopters belonged to the air-force and they need to refuel in case another kaiju pops its ugly head out of the ground. The guys in the tanks are probably busy reloading and setting up cover in case smaller targets show up. Which leaves a few infantrymen to scout out the hole all by their lonesome.'

"I say we'll be helping." The captain clarified. "But in reality, this isn't a part of your duties. We're asking for volunteers in order to escort in paramedics. You'd be trialing behind the actual soldiers and carrying medical supplies to help stabilize anyone we find."

He narrowed his eyes before sighing.

"I'll say this again with more emphasis. I'm asking for volunteers to go with me, in hopes of rescuing people. I'm not forcing or commanding you to go."

'Well thank goodness for that much.'

Captain Moor could be an ass, on occasion, but he was an all-right guy. All things considered.

I was about to politely decline his offer, when some woman sprinted past the barricades and tried to make for the big hole in the ground.

One of the soldiers tackled her from the side before she could get much further however and they both fell in a heap of flailing limbs. Him cursing at her to stop and her wailing something else entirely.

"Please! My son is down there!" She called out. "He's been following some group online and he came here thinking he'd get powers after what happened in Alaska! Please! You have to go get him!"

My eyes shifted slightly. Towards the dead, rapidly cooling mass of the horrific caterpillar monster.

'What are the odds that the kid is still alive in that thing's stomach?' I wondered.

One look at the captain told me he was thinking more or less the same thing.

"Don't worry ma'am!" Gunther said before either of us could stop him. "We're the best of the Detroit PD! We'd never leave your son in there alone."

He ran up to her and clasped her hands in his.

"If there is even a chance that he's alive, we'll find him and bring him home safe." His eyes twinkled with pure-hearted innocence.

And then, as if that weren't enough, the cameras in the distance started making those annoying clinking noises. Which meant a lot of people were taking pictures. Which meant that at least a few were taking videos and uploading all of what they captured live on Ourtube or whatever.

'Oh come on man!' I whined internally. 'I've been screwed over by the VA enough for five lifetimes! I'm not getting into some monster-infested pit to save some kid who thought it was a good idea to go spelunking in the middle of the night!'

If anything, this was what Darwin awards were for. The kid had done the gene pool a favor by taking himself out of it as far as I was concerned.

In fact, his mother should probably be thankful he lasted this long to begin with. I would have thought someone like that would've checked out much earlier when they decided they would try lead paint or that looking both ways before crossing the road simply wasn't for them.

I said all of that in my head. My mind already working overtime to conjure up all the different ways in which we could get horrifically mauled to death by a giant mantis or whatever else.

But then I saw the drones. The civilian drones with the cameras and the ones belonging to the news crews beside them. And I knew the captain saw them as well.

I swallowed a lump in my throat then, and promised myself that, if we made it out, I was going to give Gunther the biggest beating he'd ever received.