Earth vs. Tyranno-X

A terror unleashed on the human race, more deadly and diabolical than the world has ever seen!

(F+M, MF)

by PleaseCain, copyright 2001

 

Chicago, 1959

Mary Will surreptitiously opened the locket hanging from her neck, glancing at the picture of her boyfriend. If it weren't for Johnny Horizon, she wouldn't make it thru a single one of these dreary days. And for what, she wondered, to be a secretary?

Sighing at her keyboard, she puffed an errant strand of blond hair out of her face as she tried to focus on her instructor's directions.

"Typing A-S-D-F, J-K-L-sem," Miss Kerr recited. "Wrists-curled-in-proper-position, A-S-D-F, J—"

With a momentous whoosh, the wall flew into the air, and a gigantic foot crashed to the ground, erasing Miss Kerr forever. The enterprising young women of Typing I at Drury Evans Business School screamed, abandoning the fleet of reliable IBM Selectrics humming at the typing lab.

The hallway was a teeming mass of panic, swathes of which disappeared as giant claws raked thru the structure.

By the time she reached the exit doors, Mary's ears rang from the terrified shrieks. Thru the press of bodies and grasping hands, Mary lost her skirt and her barrettes, but counted herself lucky for a chance to escape. The chaos and disaster sent her and her fellow survivors fleeing in all directions.

At Maple Street she flagged down a patrol car, that screeched to a halt.

The policeman lowered his sunglasses. "Problems, young lady?"

"Officer, there is a terrible calamity occurring at Drury Evans Business School," Mary said.

"A calamity? Here in Lakeview, Chicago USA? What sort of calamity?"

"I-I-I don't know, but it's just the worst," Mary said. "There is some sort of horrible giant on the loose."

"Oh, a horrible giant, is it?" He elbowed his partner.

"Yes, please hurry!"

In the next instant, a squad car hurtled from the direction of the school, crashing upside-down on the pavement and bouncing across a lawn. A roar like a thousand lions pealed over the rooftops.

The officer scurried to retrieve his bullhorn from the trunk. "Run to the nearest civil-defense shelter, Blondie," he shouted as he slammed it shut and piled into the squad car.

"Help!" she said, but too late: the car squealed away, with Mary's slip caught in the trunk and dragging down the street. A rumbling growl, now closer, sent her scrambling and tugging her wool sweater as low as it would go, to the waistband of her panties. She cupped her ears against the horrible bellows while she ran.

An IBM Selectric thudded along the sidewalk, a hand still properly curled over J-K-L-sem.

Footfalls shook the earth.

Mary cut in at a yard overgrown with evergreens.

Dashing for cover in the bushes, she became entangled in nettles. She tugged to free herself, slipping out of the snagged pullover.

A nearby tree crackled and fell. She leaped a chain-link fence, losing her cotton panties snagged on the wire.

The world grew suddenly quiet.

From her hiding spot behind a sprawling shrub, Mary watched the frayed sweater hanging on its branch, dancing in the gusts of the giant's breath. She covered her mouth when a massive head, with a yellow reptilian eye, rose into view.

Quickly, she devised a last plan for escape.

Removing her brassiere, she dropped a pine cone in one of the cups. With only one shot, she had to make it good.

Carefully, she swung the makeshift sling and launched the pine cone. Seconds later, it thumped in a distant yard, sending the giant stampeding after it. Mary planted her white-and-black saddle shoes and bolted.

The town was in such a tumult—mothers in curlers dragging children from homes, shooing them ahead and humping televisions on their backs—that no one noticed the naked girl running in the street, hair waving and pert breasts nodding with each stride.

They saw only the rampaging brute, its jaws snapping like rifle-fire, the talons of its feet scoring the pavement with each mighty step, leaning, reaching lower, and snatching the young woman in its claws. It carried her into the air, until her screams and then her kicking legs disappeared inside its maw.

* * *

The delivery boy slid the pizza on the policeman's desk. "What's the score, Sarge?"

"Why, Johnny!" Sergeant O'Gorman said, whipping his feet off the desk. "It's 10-to-1: they're this close to invoking the slaughter-rule. Our Cubbies can't play their way out of a paper bag, but we love'm anyway."

Johnny Horizon beat his cap against his thigh. "Looks like another loss, unless something drastic happens."

"Aye," Sergeant O'Gorman agreed thru a piece of pizza. Then he pointed to the television set. The food fell from his mouth.

On the black-and-white screen, a great reptilian head rose above the outfield bleachers. Its savage jaws chomped thru fencing, masonry and wood, smashing a crater of destruction into the structure. Even thru the tiny speaker, its roar curdled their blood. As the crowd fled in all directions—running, trampling, leaping—the giant lizard's rage was stoked, and it crashed thru the ballpark, flailing at the desperate creatures all around.

From the teletype machine, Officer Riley called, "Whatever this thing is, it ate the Washington Monument! In the capital!"

The television showed the frenzied dinosaur destroying Wrigley Field, with yellow rays blazing from its eyes, scorching the hallowed outfield vines to cinders. The embattled throng shrieked in panic. The announcer's own cries climbed as the chomping monster charged nearer....

The transmission disappeared in a fizzle of static.

"Jesus, Mary and Joseph," O'Gorman muttered. He unsnapped the safety on his holster. "All right, lads, guns at the ready now. We're going in."

"Hold on, Sergeant O'Gorman. I think I recognize a pattern here," the youth said.

"Wait, boys, let's hear him out," the sergeant said. "What is it, Johnny? We've got disorder to preserve."

"What we have on our hands is Tyrannosaurus Rex, literally the 'king of thunder lizards,' and the most fearsome killing-machine ever to roam the earth," Johnny announced to the cowering staff. "I know this from my studies of paleontology."

"Paleon—?" The sergeant scratched his forehead.

"Paleontology: the study of dinosaurs," Johnny said. "And this particular Tyrannosaurus Rex is following a definite pattern."

"Oh?"

"Don't you see? It is systematically devouring the skyscrapers and ballparks of our major cities, thereby rendering them powerless," Johnny said.

"Hell-sent beastie," Sergeant O'Gorman gasped. "That's a theory, I suppose, but how can we be sure?"

"Since it has been in Washington D.C., it is coming from the east," Johnny reasoned. "Therefore, it has probably already destroyed Yankee Stadium, Shea Stadium and the Chrysler Build—"

A phone rang, and the precinct froze as Riley picked it up. Seconds later, he replaced the receiver, his face white.

"That was New York," Riley stuttered. "Yankee Stadium, Shea Stadium and, and, the Chrysler Building, all...in ruins."

As one, the officers whistled their incredulousness.

Sergeant O'Gorman said, "Where are we to go from here? It's already made a meal of our Friendly Confines." The television picture resumed, an aerial shot of bubbling off the shores of Lake Michigan, where a sizable object had submerged.

"To the Southside," Johnny said. "It's headed to Comiskey Park. But first, the Prudential Building."

"The tallest building in the world." Sergeant O'Gorman's jaw dropped. "You heard him, lads. We've got a city to save!"

A line of flashing black-and-whites sped south on Halsted Street,

on Lake Shore Drive,

on the Kennedy Expressway.

When they skidded into position in the Loop, rows of tanks from Fort Sheridan, fresh from crushing picketing steelworkers in Hegewich, lined the shoreline. The officers crouched for cover behind their opened doors, pistols at the ready, just as the gargantuan beast burst thru the white water.

It roared and seized a Coast Guard clipper, hurling it at a circling helicopter gunship, creating a blinding fireball. Batteries of surface-to-surface missiles and tanks opened fire, but thru the clouds of hanging sulfur, the monster reemerged to kick them aside like so many toy trains. Police brigades fired their pistols at the dinosaur, which flattened their cars like boxes of Cracker Jack.

That's no ordinary Tyrannosaurus Rex, Johnny thought. Dashing to the back of the line, he hopped aboard a bulldozer, shouting to the construction worker in the cockpit: "Raise the bucket! Stand your ground!"

As it broke thru the line, the monster lowered its head in a charge. All that stood between it and the Prudential Building was the yellow bulldozer, issuing a defiant black plume from its smokestack.

"Ready..." Johnny raised his arm, and then gave the signal. "Charge!"

The two clashed with a shattering boom. The dinosaur slashed with front claws and tail, deadly swipes that whistled thru the air. Each blow, deflected by the raised scoop of the bulldozer, narrowly missed Johnny. The Tyrannosaurus Rex thundered in frustration, and finally attempted to leap this final obstacle. Instead, it found itself suspended in the air over the bucket, legs furiously kicking.

Johnny seized the opportunity and lunged with a pole in his hands, trying to lance the monster's eyes. But the lizard spotted him, chomping on the end of the pole, lifting Johnny and thrashing him about.

He held as best he could, but his grip was loosening under the relentless forces.

With a cry, he plunged into the dinosaur's mouth.

Sergeant O'Gorman buried his face in his hands, as the thunder-lizard regained its footing and began tipping the bulldozer.

* * *

Falling...

Johnny landed hard. He sat in the darkness for several minutes, vaguely aware of the distant thudding of heavy footsteps.

When his eyes had adjusted, he discerned a circular room some eight feet across. Rather, it was a cylinder of some sort, stretching into darkness above his head, with no apparent ceiling.

More curious still, his clothes had disappeared, and he was clad only in his underwear. As were the other men present.

"Where are we?" Johnny said, rubbing his crown. The others shrank back, all but one.

"Hello, Johnny."

"Dr. Powers, the famous psychologist?" Johnny had delivered pizzas to his office on many a late evening.

"So good to see..." Dr. Powers faltered to the ground. Johnny rushed to his side, lifted his head and shoulders. "The processing procedure inside this robot has left us all dangerously sapped of potassium and niacin, I'm afraid."

Johnny only scratched his head.

"We're inside a machine, son," Dr. Powers said, rapping his knuckles against the wall with a hollow clang. "Diabolical, but true."

"Sit tight, Dr. Powers, I'll get us out of here." Johnny cupped an open hand around his mouth, calling into the void: "Hello!"

To his surprise, he heard an indistinct but high-pitched echo in reply.

"Is anybody there," he shouted. Again he heard the wailing, from far away, up the shaft. "Keep calling, I will follow your voice."

Dr. Powers slumped to the floor. "Beware of Dr. Bilious, Johnny," he murmured.

Johnny opened the doctor's eyelids. "See to this man!"

He hurriedly examined the circumference of the chamber. The featureless walls offered no footholds. "Give me your clothes, whatever you have," he said to his cellmates. Tho perplexed, they complied, and soon he had tied a rope of some length. "I'll need a boost," he said. "Let's see what this is all about."

He planted his hands on the cool wall, his feet against the opposite side, and began inching upward. As he climbed into darkness, the motions of the vessel, combined with the depletion of potassium and niacin, two essential minerals every body needs and part of a healthy diet, made him dizzy, but he continued higher until finally he crawled from the tube, into a larger chamber.

Below stretched a cylinder identical to the one he had exited; both tunnels moved in a synchronous motion, one pistoning forward while the other swung back, and then switching directions, on and on. Johnny understand that he sat in the belly of the beast, and the cylinders were the monster's legs. He heard more pleadings from below.

"Hang tight," Johnny said. He took a deep breath and slid into the black chute.

Slowing his descent with arms and legs, he lowered himself to another chamber. Startled voices tittered around him. His arms rose defensively, while he strained to see into the murky surroundings.

"Are you all right?"

"Have you come to rescue us?"

"Who are you?"

"Please don't harm us."

The voices were female.

Eventually he distinguished their forms. The men had been processed to the other side, and the women here, stripped of all clothing, except for high heels. Their nakedness did not hinder their grateful crowding however.

"It's been terrifying, all by ourselves." "Finally, someone has come!" "We're saved!" They hugged and kissed him.

Johnny cleared his throat. They fell to apprehensive silence.

"I'm afraid we are inside of the dinosaur," he said, and they fell at his feet, some fainting. "But I may know a way out." This restored a hopeful silence. "I can't promise I will return, so you, all of you, will have to be brave, and wish me luck."

A woman with long blond hair and black collarband stepped forward to kiss him, her wiry bush brushing the back of his hand. "Good luck, courageous man."

A pair of warm lips sucked his ear, whispering, "You are our last hope."

Another woman licked his neck; Johnny tipped his head to receive her velvet tongue. A brunette with a short bob ran her fingers thru his hair and turned his head so that she could plant a wet citrus kiss. Dozens of fingertips fluttered across his chest, then blew like a breeze of butterflies over the trail of hair down his stomach, past his naval, lower and lower.

Insistent arms parted his legs where he stood. Tongues tickled his insteps, and behind his knees.

Breasts danced patterns on his back, pelvises ground on his buttocks, sharpened fingernails twisted his nipples.

Mouths made love to Johnny's face, and when he opened his eyes, a redhead and brunette were leaning across him, necking.

An unseen angel applied her devotion to his scrotum, humming contentedly, while pairs of skilled hands milked his erection.

Johnny felt the situation slipping as the captive women expressed their gratitude, binding together in the face of peril. The press of bodies formed a hot cocoon writhing about him.

Here escaped a soft gasp of ecstasy, there an erotic cry, followed by another, by several, growing more frequent, a counterpoint of female lust swelling into a dirge of passion: moans, sighs, the smackings of lips and labia, the orgy assuming a collective consciousness, evolving to a desperately sensuous organism. At its heart, Johnny closed his eyes and surrendered, levitating in a field of primal bliss, and seized by a vibration that pulsed from the tip of his cock and branched like lightning over his legs and torso. His skin became electric, every nerve wriggling white-hot, as a masculine voice joined the women's, who pumped surge after surge of semen from his helpless cock.

A tremendous quaking sent them clinging to Johnny's shoulders.

"That was no mere orgasm," he said, looking skyward. "That must have been the collapse of the Prudential Building. Time to spring into action." "Good luck, Johnny." The tall blond kissed him and hurried off. When they said their goodbyes, the crowd parted, revealing a girl standing alone, lips quivering.

Johnny's jaw dropped. "Mary!"

Mary Will shuffled forward, sobbing on his shoulder.

Johnny raised her chin. "I'll come back for you." They plunged into a soul-bearing last kiss, until her sisters gently pulled her away. "I'll be back for all of you."

Johnny gave the makeshift rope a couple of tugs, then pulled himself up and out of sight.

He climbed into the cavernous belly. Muted pings echoed outside the hull, and Johnny knew they were underwater, in Lake Michigan: it wouldn't be long before the monster devoured its next target. Overhead he discovered a line of industrial bolt-ends—using the rope, he scaled the interior of the machine, until he spotted a ledge above, from which filtered a dim glowing. Just in time too, as the dull clamoring resumed outside: violent percussions vibrated the hull, disturbing the rope, slamming Johnny against the steel walls. With his grip weakening, suspended over the dark bowels of the monster, Johnny tried to time the rope's swinging, and jumped.

Catching his arms and elbows over the edge, he hauled his body up into a control room lit by twinkling circuitry. At the far end of the cabin, past humming generators, were two circular windows, backed by powerful laser cylinders. Beneath these was a silver chair, that seated a man busy at a bank of controls. Above the instrument panel was an etched brass plate, "Dr. Bilious." The gnomish man turned a dial and pushed a lever. The cylinders behind the windows sparked and discharged a pulse of brilliant light thru the portals, making Johnny shield his eyes.

He crept closer to the sallow man, who reactivated the knob and reached for the lever.

"Not an inch further," Johnny said, seizing the bony wrist.

"You dare interfere at my moment of victory?" The voice was a low croak. "My Tyranno-X will rule the world!"

The chair knifed around, and a foot pounded against the youth's breadbasket. Doubled over, Johnny lifted his gaze. The professor in the white laboratory coat had hideously bulbous eyes and head, bald but for black eyebrows like gashes over the eyes. He brandished a silver gun with a clear barrel, ringed by three disks.

"You have plagued me long enough, meddlesome boy," the evil professor snickered. "Now, for a taste of my raygun."

But Johnny knew karate, and swung his leg to send the gun skidding. The doctor clambered for the weapon, but the boy tackled him, nudging the gun into the dark chasm beyond.

The gnarled villain fought with surprising ferocity, animated by all the anger in its black heart. He kicked the boy in the ribs, and repeatedly across the floor with his ankle-high black boots.

Outside, the battle between mankind and monster rumbled on.

Johnny's eyes grew wide as his head dangled over the precipice beyond the ledge. The mad professor wasted no time, pouncing and locking his claws around the youth's neck. His eyes boiled with venom, his breath stank of murderous acid. "Time to die, All-American Boy."

The two grappled, a tumbling blur of hatred and survival. With a protracted cry, the combatants tipped over into the darkness.

Seconds later, screams echoed from far below.

The rope hanging from the rivet overhead grew suddenly taut. Five fingers, and then ten, clutched at the metal ledge.

Huffing, Johnny pulled himself onto the deck, crawling to the front of the cabin.

From the portals, Johnny saw that the monster was charging across the Dan Ryan Expressway. The white arches of Comiskey approached with each huge stride. Shouts emanated from within: the ballpark was full of baseball fans!

His mind spinning, Johnny's eyes darted over the long rows of dials and meters.

The monster plowed thru the parking lot, throwing vehicles to the sides.

Gritting his teeth, Johnny flicked entire rows of switches with his arms.

He was thrown to the front of the cabin.

The monster had stopped.

Then it waved to the battalions of Chicago police below.

One of its eyes swung open, and Johnny leaned outside. "Sergeant O'Gorman, I've got it handled up here."

"I might have known it were you, Johnny! Hizzonner Duhmare's house is only a few blocks yonder. He will award you the key to the city, sure, lad."

"Glad to be of service, sir," Johnny said. "Give me a few minutes—I'll be right back."

The sergeant said, "You take all the time you need, young man. What do we do with the monster, I wonder?"

Johnny said, "Don't worry, Sarge, I've got a plan." He disappeared within.

"That boy." Sergeant O'Gorman shook his head, grinning. "All right, laddiebucks, let's pick up a little around here. We're going home."

Several minutes later, the rope dropped amongst the nervous gaggle of nude women, and Johnny slid down.

"America is saved," he announced. They jumped in excitement, kissing their hero.

At the other end of the room, a body lay in a heap beneath a white coat. Johnny held the women as they turned away and shivered.

Once more, he climbed thru the body of the beast, until he reached the control room. Johnny lowered Tyranno-X's head to the ground. "Bueno," "Click-click," "Danke," "Oui": the men from around the world clasped Johnny's shoulders and climbed thru the monster's mouth to freedom, kissing the ground when they exited.

Dr. Powers gave the thumbs-up from his stretcher. "Son, you'll make a fine paleontologist."

One-by-one, the women expressed their thanks, feminine fingers and tongues telling him they would never forget.

Alone, Johnny and Mary hugged.

"There's one more thing I have to do. Will you come with me?" he said.

Without hesitation, she nodded. They climbed into the control room, where he belted her into the chair and activated the monster. The dinosaur rose to standing, its mighty engines churning and groaning. "Don't be afraid, Mary," Johnny said, and Tyranno-X surged forward. Johnny steered the robot along the street, escorted by police cars flashing and wailing, as the blue waters of the lake came into view.

Johnny waved to the squads below. "Brace yourself," he said to Mary, and the metal dinosaur plunged into the water.

Sergeant O'Gorman removed his cap. "Godspeed, my boy. And for crying out loud, get some clothes on these men."

The wonderful world of the seas floated past the windows: tropical fish of all shapes and sizes, seahorses and octopi, sponges, corals and shimmering kelps. Finally, Mary could relax in Johnny's arms.

She was awakened by gentle shaking. Coming to her senses, she felt a deeper shuddering. Looking out the window, she gasped. In the distance, a volcano spilled fire into the air. "Where are we?"

"The former island paradise called..." he held her tightly, "Krakatoa."

"Johnny, I'm scared."

He said, "I know, but there is something we have to do, so that no one uses Tyranno-X for evil purposes again."

"But what about us?" Mary pouted.

Johnny lowered the dinosaur's head to the ground, and led Mary outside, where they kissed. "Wish me luck," he said. "The world hangs in the balance."

Mary waved as the monster started toward the mountain.

As the volcano drew nearer, Johnny increased the machine's power. The mighty engines roared as it charged the rocky slopes, plowing thru trees and vegetation.

The pitch increased and the gargantuan worked harder. Johnny's ears popped with the pressure, and still he turned the dial higher.

The outside air snaked with heat as the metal giant splashed thru red rivers of lava. Johnny gunned the turbines, until the drops of sweat from his forehead ran sideways across his cheeks.

The ground trembled. A storm of black ashen rock pelted the titanium skin of Tyranno-X, staggering it backwards, but Johnny deftly marshaled its reflexes, and the robot fought onward.

The world became a hell of white flames. Johnny's eyes stung, his lungs heaved for air: what little he managed to inhale seared his insides. Disorientation, directions disappearing, melding into one. In the back of his mind he wondered if he were already dead inside the inferno.

"Hold together, baby," he coaxed the magnificent machine, pushing his weight against the controls.

For an instant, the fire cleared, and Johnny saw the crater ahead. Inside bubbled molten lava, bright as the sun, and flaming prominences rocketed in the sky. The rim of earth crumbled into the evil soup, the savage mountain devouring itself.

Johnny set the controls full-on, and ran to the back of the cabin, sliding down to the monster's mouth. He secured his rope to one of the teeth, and began lowering himself to the shaking ground.

Johnny still hung several feet above the ground as the lip of the volcano approached. He leapt, rolling between the lizard's rampaging legs.

While skipping a course between hissing rivulets of liquid rock, he heard a vast metallic creaking, but dared not stop to look.

The mountain rumbled, and Johnny felt a flash at his back as the volcano clashed with the thunder-lizard.

Fire soared overhead. Flaming comets of black cinder pounded the surroundings. Johnny ducked and swerved, jumping orange chasms that opened to the heart of the earth. The mountain was breaking apart.

Over his shoulder, he glimpsed a tidal wave of lava. The fire crackled behind him. To his left, the lava had overtaken him, swallowing palm trees whole and razing the lush rainforest to a wasteland.

Vines whipped against his face and shins. He heard trees falling behind him, on his heels.

"Johnny! Over here!"

It was Mary, from a rock formation ahead. "Hurry! Don't look back!"

Johnny clawed up the jagged rock that tore his skin. He felt dizzy and nauseous, like he was falling.

He felt Mary pulling him by the wrist, to a shadowy cave, cradling his head on her grass skirt. The walls around them shuddered. Dust streamed from the ceiling. Then, like rushing water, the flaming lava thundered past, beyond the mouth of the cave. Sparks flew from the deadly stream, churlish flames rearing like horses' heads above the flow.

The heat felt like a hand pushing on Johnny's eyelids.

Darkness.

A sugary liquid dripped between his lips, into his parched throat. He opened his eyes.

Mary's blue eyes looked down into his; the sky outside was the same soothing color. She was pouring the milky drink from a coconut shell. Johnny raised his head.

"Shh, we're safe," she said. "It's all over."

She helped him to his feet, assisted him outside the cave. The sky was interrupted only by cottony clouds hovering over the twinkling ocean. The forest below teemed with the chatterings and whistles of wildlife, stretching all the way to the coast. An undulating plain to the right looked like a carpet of green, waving in the breeze: the rebirth of the island, christened by a stately rumble of distant thunder.

Johnny's mind spun with questions, but her smile dissipated his concerns. His arms cradled her bare waist, and they kissed, her tongue beckoning him.

Mary's skirt whispered in a heap around her ankles. Johnny lifted her naked body, carrying her to a bed of grass. Her nipples stood stiff and wanting. He straddled her torso; her stomach rose and fell with anticipatory breaths. An opal drop glistened at his tip. He brushed it around her nipples, draping a tiny filament between them.

"Be my wife, Mary Will," Johnny said.

She groaned, and brought up her knees. He gazed at her pussy, succulent like a rain-kissed plum.

He traced the groove of slickness with his cock, stirring the humid smell of her arousal that tickled some button in his brain and made him plunge into her creamy grasp.

"Squirt a baby inside me," she said as he slid inside. They giggled and stared into one another's eyes as they fucked. A beam of light filtered thru the palm trees onto her glowing face, and her destiny became suddenly clear. She added, "Enough babies to fill an island."

Mary Will held Johnny as he cried out, a wail carried on the backs of seabirds fluttering against the orange orb sinking to the sea, leaving a farewell trail of sun-kisses on the waves, where ocean breezes swell like a chorus of Hawaiian maidens.