Archive for Stories

Will Tokyo be destroyed? Will a tentacled hero rise to save the city from another kaiju? Or will Kuto~urufu perform his usual ritual of pain and death? This creature feature takes us to Japan to find out …

A magnitude-9 earthquake originated from the Tohoku subduction zone (38.322 N, 142.369 E) east of Honshu, Japan at 2:45 pm, Tokyo time, on March 11, 2011. The immediate shocks from the quake hit Tokyo in little over a minute.

Satellite imagery revealed a massive form at the ocean’s surface, churning out tsunami waves towards Japan. Of those who saw and recognized the ominously hideous figure—with its sinuously whipping tentacles and bright red eyes, massive arms and legs pounding and kicking the ocean into a fury pool—the name Kuto~urufu was exclaimed with ancient dread.

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Jordan Hofer reminds us in this dread-full tale that sanity is a gift easily stolen.

“Life in the oceans must be sheer hell. A vast, merciless hell of permanent and immediate danger. So much of hell that during evolution some species crawled, fled onto some small continents of solid land, where the Lessons of Darkness continue.”

Werner Herzog, April 30, 1999

Judd Farmer feared the sea. He more than respected the ancient and indifferent nature of its forces. The relentless crashing surf could not care if he were caught in its fury and dashed upon the lacerating coral. When the ocean did care about him he was the object of hunger, food to be devoured by abysmal jaws with rows of serrated teeth. And then there was its incomprehensible vastness, the open and endless depths that concealed fears formed of shadow and dream, of memories so old they had no name and could not be recovered in full conscious form from the primordial sleep.

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Psst! Yeah, over here. Do you want to read something REALLY disgusting? Of course you do, you little scamp. Well, read what we got below and tell all your friends where you got it, all right? And don’t say nuthin to your parents!”

Since my retirement from the force, I make my weekly pilgrimage to the supermarket and pick up eggs, bread, cheese for my wife, and one copy of each of the supermarket tabloids. I’m not much into the weight loss miracles or reports of Tony Curtis’ brave final days, but the last case I ever handled is one that’s haunted me ever since I slapped the cuffs on Hubert Hubert as he lay buck naked in bed and took his young companion away from him six years ago.

Every week since then I scour the Weekly World News, the Sun, the Star, the Globe, all of them, for some trace of the life I destroyed, some sign that I can make things right.

But today, after giving Marie a sponge bath and getting her down for her morning nap, I found it.

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