Posted by Delgonian on November 05, 2005 at 01:43:19:
NAMEKUJIRA by Delgonian
Takeshi Honda was not in an ideal condition. Never particularly organised, he had almost missed his early-morning All Nippon Airways flight from Tokyo down to Naha, the capital of the Japanese island of Okinawa. To combat the stress of flying he had downed a number of in-flight whiskies - he was not sure how many, exactly. Now, his stomach complaining queasily, and his inappropriately formal clothing rumpled in the heat and eighty percent humidity, he was in a local cab as it scooted along the busy waterfront at Naha. His brain briefly registered the variety of shipping that crowded the harbour - freighters, fishing vessels, yachts - before he was being bundled out of the taxi into a waiting motor launch. Money changed hands, as if by magic. Then the boat sped off, rocking alarmingly as it made its noisy way out from the quay towards a distant jetty. There, a guy looking like some kind of ageing gangster took Takeshi's overnight bag and hauled him up out of the boat.
At the end of the jetty was waiting a sleek, blue, powerful-looking Cessna 206H floatplane, its engines grumbling and props turning slowly. The gangster stowed Takeshi's bag somewhere, then helped him up into the cabin. 'Buckle up', he said tersely, before heading for the cockpit. Takeshi did so, realising slowly that this person was probably the pilot. The prospect of more air travel loomed - slumped in his seat like a worse-for-wear item of luggage, he felt like someone in the grip of a persistent nightmare. Turning his head, he looked around the cabin.
The Cessna had six passenger seats - he occupied one, three were empty and another held some strapped-in bags. In the remaining seat, looking as fresh, cool, poised and sexy as ever, was Yumiko Kimura. His colleague in this adventure. The boss's new lover and protegee. Takeshi's ex-girlfriend.
'So glad you could find the time to be here,' she said, with icy irony. Yumiko's voice was as he remembered, infuriatingly lovely. He managed to mumble a reply, which was cut short as the twin engines of the Cessna powered up, their 420 hp roar alarmingly loud. Now the floatplane was beginning to move, leaving the jetty behind and heading for open water.
Takeshi's stomach lurched in anticipation of takeoff. 'Have some of this,' said Yumiko, handing him a chilled bottle of some kind of sports drink. 'And when we're fully airborne', she looked at her watch, 'in about seven minutes, you can start my briefing.' He closed his eyes, nodded, numbly.
The engines reached a crescendo of raw power, the plane began its impetuous, headlong hurtle into the air.
Both were employees of middle-ranking Sakura Television Company. They had met at a year-end party at the studio - Yumiko had been a weather girl, Takeshi had been (and still was) the head researcher for a late-night programme called HenNaMono, which covered weird but allegedly true things such as UFOs, crop circles, chupacabras and the like. Their relationship had lasted three amazing, sex-filled months.
It had been destined to fail, of course. Takeshi was never going to make it to director level, he had found his comfortably eccentric niche in life. Discarding him, Yumiko had made her way rapidly through a number of increasingly senior male partners at Sakura TV, and now was the mistress of Mr. Uchida, the CEO and biggest of all big wheels at the company, ably taking the place of his middle-aged, bedridden invalid wife.
Weather girl no longer, she was now a fully-fledged investigative reporter and presenter. And this, naturally, was her all-important, first big assignment.
The Cessna had made it up into the air and was now banking, giving its passengers a tremendous, vertigo-inducing view of the sunlit blue ocean beneath them. While Yumiko was gazing out through the windows, Takeshi was able to get a good look at what he had been missing since she had walked out on him all those months ago. His ex was of medium height, trim-bodied, with (he remembered) small but perfectly formed breasts that were like a pair of creamy-pale exotic fruit, unblemished and firm-fleshed. Beneath a cascade of glossy black hair, her face had a prettiness which somehow managed to be remote and sensuous at the same time. She had almond-shaped, long-lashed eyes, a small pert nose and a delicate mouth, lips coated in her trademark frosted-pink lip-gloss. Even though she was wearing some sort of trendy pantsuit over a white T-shirt, he could trace the slender yet curvaceous lines of her compact body. Her hands and feet were tiny, baby-like.
The last time they had ever made love, she had been sitting naked on Takeshi's leather couch, watching him lazily as he approached shedding clothes in his usual clumsy manner. As he had drawn near and knelt next to the couch, she had placed her slim ankles behind his neck and had pulled him towards her. He remembered the sweetness of her shaven cunt as he had nuzzled her eagerly and probed her with his tongue, then she had dragged him forward onto her, rubbing her breasts over his face, then sliding under him to guide his cock into her, rocking and writhing as she squeezed pleasure from the encounter with an almost childlike greediness and intensity. The warm slickness of her cunt, the noises she made as she abandoned all control, the -
'Takeshi, will you stop giving me that embarrassing, puppy-dog look?'
'I'm sorry.' Blushing, he hurriedly shook off the vision, returned to the present moment. The Cessna had levelled out and was now settled on its course, the noise of the engines reducing until it was a deep hum in the background. Yumiko was pulling an old-fashioned reporter's notebook from one of her bags. 'Now,' she said, turning to him, 'let's get to work.'
Takeshi reached inside his jacket, tugged out his tablet PC, a slim device barely larger than a organiser. He switched on the computer, flipped open its miniature LCD screen. 'So,' he said, 'what do you want to know?'
'Everything,' she said. 'I want every fact, every bit of information you've got on that computer of yours, plus everything in your head.' An all-too-familiar intense look had settled over her pretty features. 'Pretend I'm stupid, pretend I'm a viewer who knows nothing. I'll stop you if I want you to repeat stuff or skip some things. Okay?'
'Okay,' said Takeshi. 'I'm hungry. Is there anyth-'
'Later,' said Yumiko. 'Work first.'
'This is where we're headed,' said Takeshi, 'the island of Tomogushima.' The screen was displaying a map which showed southern Japan, Okinawa and the long chains of islands, the Ryukyus and the Yaeyamas, which stretched down to the south-west. Using a trackball, Takeshi closed in on the southernmost island until its vaguely crab-like shape filled the screen. 'There it is. Very remote, closer to Taiwanese territory than to Japan, in fact. About 250 square kilometres in size, large as islands go, but with a tiny population. Main town is the port of Ebiramachi, which is - here, on the eastern side. Main industries - fishing and tourism.
And Tomogushima has one claim to fame, which is the reason why we're headed there. It is the home of the world's largest land mollusc.'
Yumiko was nodding impatiently. 'We'll go back to the geography again in a minute. What's this about a - mollusc?'
'Okay.' A picture appeared on the screen. It was a dark-looking slug, sitting on a what appeared to be a lettuce leaf. It was perhaps 15 centimetres long.
'The Pacific whale slug,' said Takeshi, 'or Arion balaenus pacificus, to use its scientific name. The biggest land mollusc in the world. This is a small specimen - the largest ever recorded in recent times was just under a metre long. But-'
'Wait a minute. You said this is why we're going to Tomogushima?'
'Well, yes.'
Yumiko was staring at the picture on the screen. The seconds passed. 'What's wrong?' Takeshi asked.
'We're going to Tomogushima to see some sort of giant - slug?' Yumiko laughed, contemptuous and puzzled in equal measure. ''The greatest new wonder of the natural world' was all they told me. This is why Sakura TV has chartered an aircraft and sent us both on an expensive two-thousand-kilometer round trip? My debut assignment - to do some kind of ground-breaking news report on what, a kind of overgrown garden pest?'
'Stay calm, Yumiko,' said Takeshi. 'You said to tell you everything, remember. Just let me talk - all right?'
'This had better be good,' said Yumiko.
'It will be, I promise. Okay, known facts about the Pacific whale slug. For one thing, it's carnivorous. Normally, it will eat insects, worms, other slugs. If it lives to grow to about half a metre in length, it will tackle a bird or rat.'
'Eww,' said Yumiko. 'How charming.'
'For another thing, there is no known upper limit on the size these molluscs will get. Rats and other small predators will dine on the juveniles, but once they reach a certain size, they're safe from most dangers, and theoretically there's no stopping their growth. However, to get that big, their protein intake does need to be phenomenal, so in normal circumstances this simply doesn't happen. And the other fascinating thing about these creatures is the way they hunt. Okay, you're a mollusc, you're slow-moving, you're-'
'Leave me out of this, Takeshi.'
'All right, I'm a mollusc, I'm hungry but I'm slow-moving, I eat mainly other small slow-moving creatures. But one day I get lucky, I find the carcass of a rat. I eat it - and then something incredible happens. I break down the body of the rat and process it, analysing all the different kinds of compounds in its body. Then I begin to manufacture these compounds inside me, in an improved, super-potent form. Specifically, I start to manufacture highly-concentrated pheromones, rat pheromones.'
'Pheromones are to do with - sex, right?'
'Right. They trigger sexual arousal, they are a sort of sexual signature chemical. And so next time I sense there are rats nearby, I'll start to emit rat pheromones like crazy. The rats go into a kind of sexual trance, they start to mate with one another or with the nearest rat-shaped object, they can't help themselves. And while they're humping away, oblivious to everything around them, I'll creep up on one of them and - dinner is served.'
'So what are you telling me? It hits its prey with some sort of date-rape drug before eating it? I'm getting a bad feeling about this. I think we ought to turn the plane around and head straight back.'
'Just let me tell you the rest of it,' said Takeshi. 'You'll be interested, I promise.'
It had started a month ago, with a phone call from Masao, a contact of Takeshi's who lived and worked as a scuba instructor on Tomogushima. They had collaborated before, on an episode of HenNaMono about prehistoric undersea temples. This time it was about a mysterious mass vanishing. A local fisherman reported witnessing something strange while alone on his boat near the island's remote south shore. Earlier, he had seen a row of large shapes on a distant beach - pilot whales, marooned high and dry on the sand. Motionless, probably dead of exposure. The weather had worsened and he had gone back to port. Then, returning to the area after a day or so, the fisherman had found - nothing there. The whales had vanished completely. He thought little of it, maybe the carcasses had been washed away by the tide. However, a week later, he was in the area again and saw another pod of stranded pilot whales on that same distant beach. And this time he had glimpsed - something else. A dark shape higher up on the shore. Bigger than the whales. He swore that it was some sort of monster, although he never got a very good look at it.
A coastguard patrol out of Ebiramachi investigated this sighting. Landing at the deserted beach, the coastguards found no whales or monsters. However, they did find great furrows in the sand, as if heavy objects had been dragged up from the sea's edge. And on the higher ground their boots sank into a thick gelatinous slime that formed a broad sticky trail heading inland into the forest that covered most of Tomogushima. Something had clearly been here recently, they told Masao. Something very big.
'I was planning a future episode of HenNaMono', said Takeshi. 'The pilot whales, the disappearances, the slime... I was going to call it - 'Namekujira.''
Yumiko gave him a tolerant smile. 'Namekuji' was 'slug' in Japanese, 'kujira' was 'whale', it was an appropriate sort of name for a mysterious whale-sized slimy monster.
'And then, yesterday,' said Takeshi, 'Masao called me again. This time, his call was urgent.'
Something frightening had happened in the early afternoon near the isolated village of Tohomura, situated deep in the central forests of the island. Villagers had been alerted to the ominous sounds of splintering trees as a gigantic entity began to emerge from the jungle. Panicked residents described it as immense, like a black wall of living flesh, something indescribably noxious and alien. They fled en masse, in cars and farm vehicles, some escaping westward into the hills, most journeying eastward to the coast and Ebiramachi. Tohomura was now deserted and there were police cordons on the roads leading to it.
'The official line is that a landslide has threatened the village. No big news, nothing to see. But Masao has a friend who works in Tohomura. This was taken using his cellphone camera.' Takeshi clicked on an icon, opened a jpeg image. 'Look.'
It was a confusing picture, slightly out of focus. But there were trees, Yumiko could pick out the vivid green splashes of vegetation. And between them - something vast and black. Something with a cluster of monstrous tentacles and the recognisable bulge of a slug's mantle. Yumiko stared at it in silence.
'Namekujira', said Takeshi.
'We put two and two together,' he went on. 'This giant thing is clearly a slug. But how can it have got so big? We think that it had started out small, eaten its share of rats and such like. There are wild pigs in the forest, maybe it chanced on a pig carcass and learned how to make pig pheromones, attracting and consuming these animals by the score. And then it reached the coast. The Pacific whale slug is highly salt-tolerant, it doesn't mind seawater. What if it found a beached pilot whale? Or a whole pod of them? By now it might be big enough to consume a small whale. And by releasing pheromones into the water, it would attract more pilot whales, causing them to beach themselves in a sexual frenzy. All useful protein to be consumed. Huge quantities of living matter to be processed, to be added to its bulk.'
Despite herself, Yumiko was filled with a horrified curiosity. 'Just how big is this thing?'
Takeshi shrugged. 'Twenty metres long, maybe more. Four, five metres high. 'A wall of flesh,' one of the witnesses said.'
'They told me nothing of this at the studio,' said Yumiko. ''The newest wonder of the world' was all they said. The chance of a lifetime. It was all secrecy and speed. They got the equipment together, hustled me to the airport, just like that!' She snapped her fingers.
'This is unique,' said Takeshi. 'This is a coup.'
'But the danger. Surely -'
'No danger,' said Takeshi. 'That's the beauty of it. For all its size, that thing is slow. You or I can outpace it just by walking. And we have immunity to its pheromone factory - it has never eaten a human being, therefore it cannot manufacture human pheromones. And the police are there, the military as well, for all I know. We will be completely safe.'
A hungry light was dawning in Yumiko's eyes. 'This is a TV first.'
'Yes it is,' said Takeshi. 'We will be the first to show this incredible creature to the world. Sakura TV will have the jump on all the others, even NHK and CNN. No other media company knows about it - yet. Time is of the essence. We need to get to Tohomura and be the first to capture it on camera.'
'You're pretty excited by this, I can tell,' said Yumiko.
Takeshi nodded intently. 'It's the sort of story I've always dreamed about.'
'Well, let me tell you something, Takeshi. This is my assignment, it was given to me. You were allowed to come along as my researcher and assistant, and that's fine. But it will be me in front of the camera. This is my show, Takeshi. Mine. Do you understand that?'
Takeshi swallowed. 'I understand.'
'Good. Because I won't allow anyone to upstage me here. Anyone who tries to grab the glory from me will be trodden on, like a... a slug. I won't tolerate it. Okay?'
'Okay,' said Takeshi. He shrugged.
They came down to land in the lagoon that formed the natural harbour at Ebiramachi, on the island of Tomogushima, taxied to a long wooden jetty and emerged gratefully from the plane, blinking in the hazy late-afternoon sunlight. Here the heat was tropical, relentless. Their taciturn pilot opened up the hold and brought out their personal baggage plus a heavy metallic trunk bearing the pink and silver Sakura TV logo. 'Careful with that!' snapped Yumiko, reaching forward to prevent the trunk from falling on its side.
The harbourmaster was there, with a few perfunctory questions, then up came a tanned young man in sandals and wraparound shades - Masao. They all greeted one another, bowing. 'Bad news, I'm afraid,' Masao said as they made their way towards the Ebiramachi waterfront. Takeshi was carrying both his and Yumiko's bags, Masao was pushing the metallic trunk along on its wheels. 'No-one is being allowed through to Tohomura. There's just one single road which leads there from here, and they've put a barrier across it. They're talking about dangerous landslides.' Masao shrugged.
'We have to try to persuade them,' said Takeshi. 'Let's check in at the hotel first and then see if we can get ourselves a pass.'
'This thing is heavy!' said Masao. 'What's in it?'
Yumiko smiled tightly. 'That trunk is the reason I don't need camera or sound people. We call it CameraBoy. Just don't damage it.'
Half an hour later they were standing in the sweltering reception area of Ebiramachi's police station, where the air-conditioning was not working properly, and the police inspector facing them across the desk was mopping the sweat from his face. 'The answer, again, is no,' he was saying. 'We have a typhoon on the way, and I have enough to do without having to act as nursemaid to TV reporters or contend with silly rumours about monsters. You will stay safely here in Ebiramachi until I have decided that the danger of landslides is over and that people can use the road again.'
Yumiko had moved a few metres away, talking into her cellphone. Now she turned round and came up to the counter. 'This is Mr. Uchida, my boss.' She handed the inspector her cellphone. The policeman introduced himself, listened to the other's demands for a moment or so. 'I'm sorry, there's nothing more I can do,' he said finally. He switched off the cellphone and handed it back. The interview was at an end.
Later, much later, Takeshi was in his hotel room, lying on his bed and gazing at the ceiling. Masao had gone home, Yumiko was in her in her own room, or in the bar, maybe. Takeshi was experiencing a mixture of feelings, mainly irritation mingled with regret that he would not now be able to see the monster tomorrow. But also relief. Because that thing was probably very dangerous. He had downplayed the danger, both to Yumiko and to his bosses, in his eagerness to get out here. The giant slug was a freak of nature, and this made it highly unpredictable. So maybe today's setback was for the best.
There was a knock at the door. It was Yumiko, with a bottle of Scotch in her hand and two glasses. 'Mind if I join you?' she asked.
Takeshi found himself staring at her. She had changed into a clingy black dress that revealed the soft curves of her hips and breasts, and Takeshi admired her slim, stockinged legs as she walked slowly across to him. As ever, Yumiko had the power to take his breath away and set his heart pounding.
For a few minutes they drank Scotch in silence. 'I'm sorry about all this,' Takeshi said finally. 'We came all this way for nothing.'
'We did our best,' said Yumiko. 'The police seem determined to keep the situation under wraps. There's nothing we can do, except wait.' Takeshi nodded, took another sip of his Scotch.
She sat down on the bed, put down her glass. Then, slowly, deliberately, she removed her stockings, smoothly peeling the sheer fabric from her legs, first one and then the other. There was the faintest sound, the soft slither of nylon over bare skin. Then she stood up, turned slowly round, a mischievous smile on her lips.
'Well, ' she said after a while. 'Don't say you've forgotten how to undress me.'
Takeshi needed no further prompting. Setting down his drink, he unfastened her dress and pulled it off her, almost tearing it in his haste. She was all bare beneath it, her perfectly formed breasts softly reflecting the lamplight, nipples erect. Suddenly she was pushing him back onto the bed, and he found himself being stripped and subdued, gloriously overcome by an assault of warm, naked girl-flesh. Every time he tried to sit up, Yumiko placed a hand to his chest, pushed him back down. Soon she was sitting on him, gripping him hard with her smooth thighs, lowering herself onto his eagerly straining cock. Now he was in her, doing his best not to lose it and come his brains out in these first delicious few seconds. Yumiko began to move her hips, slowly, sensuously, her eyes glittering down at him like a vixen's through her mussed-up hair.
The last thing he remembered was her crying out in the grip of orgasm and falling forward onto him, and then allowing himself finally to come, spending himself heedlessly, wetly in an almost agonisingly pleasurable release. After that, combined fatigue and post-coital drowsiness hit him like a pole-axe and he was unconscious.
He awoke confused, disorientated, with a dry mouth and pounding headache. It was 10 in the morning and horribly hot. His alarm clock had been switched off. Someone was banging on the hotel room door and shouting his name. It was Masao.
Yumiko was nowhere to be found. She, and all the equipment she had brought from Tokyo, had vanished.
Half an hour later, Takeshi and Masao were sitting in a patrol car driven by a young, bespectacled police officer. They were heading west along a deserted jungle road which led from Ebiramachi to the central hills of the island. Yumiko must have somehow managed to borrow or steal a vehicle and joined the highway at a point several kilometres away from the police barrier. She was now presumed to be on her way to Tohomura all by herself, to find and film the monster.
Hopefully they would be able to catch up with her before she did anything too rash.
Yumiko consulted her GPS-equipped cellphone, checked her position on the detailed map that was spread out on the seat beside her. She was in a small motor dinghy, making good headway up one of the lazy brown-tinged rivers that snaked across the island. Around her was a thick canopy of jungle, alive with birdsong and the endless buzzing of insects. At her feet was the large pink-and-silver trunk that contained CameraBoy. Even in the shade, she was grateful for her light safari suit, her Ray-Bans and a wide-brimmed hat that kept the sun from her pampered skin.
She had formulated the plan early yesterday evening. Masao had remarked that the giant slug, on its path inland from the coast to Tohomura, had appeared to follow the course of first one river, then another. It was not straying far from fresh water, as its great bulk, presumably, required huge amounts to keep it hydrated. The idea had hit her like a jolt of electricity. The monster should now be in the vicinity of the river, some distance upstream of Tohomura, and who cared about blocked roads, when the waterways of the island were freely available. Amazingly, no-one else seemed to have been thinking along similar lines.
The next step was to acquire a boat, and this she carried out with efficiency. Takeshi had not been her only conquest last night. She hoped that her contact would not be too angry to find that she had disappeared in the morning, leaving a note on the kitchen table, wrapped about a wad of banknotes. She considered this acquisition a loan, to be repaid later. Ruthless she might be, but she was not a thief.
Half an hour earlier, she had passed through a deserted village, which her map identified as Tohomura. Silent buildings, deserted now, apart from the ever-present birds and other wildlife. Eerie. Now she was heading deeper and deeper into the central jungles of the island. Her fear now was that the monster had left the water course and taken a different direction, or that she would not be able to see it through the dense trees. She slowed the outboard motor of the dinghy, looking carefully this way and that.
She passed a wide open space of open land to her left, where the forest had been cleared to form a large compound, ringed by a chain-link fence. Maybe the developer's funds had run out a while ago, as wild plants and grass had now reclaimed the clearing, and the fence was down in several places. Yumiko swept the compound with her gaze and was about to turn her head away, when suddenly she glimpsed movement near the far end of the clearing. A sapling, right on the edge between the forest and the open land, was moving, bending. It was part of a great clump of trees that crowded against the wire fence. Something was starting to emerge from the forest, pushing against the trees, causing them to lean over the fence, slowly warping and crushing a whole section of it, like a speeded-up avalanche.
She had found her monster.
It was behind the trees, but Yumiko could see its gigantic dark bulk looming through the branches and foliage, about a hundred metres away. She angled the boat towards the riverbank, slightly reducing her speed. Her heart was hammering, a potent cocktail of mingled dread and excitement coursing through her. She had found the Namekujira! There were the remains of a wooden jetty nearby, but the bank was almost level with the water, and Yumiko brought the boat swiftly up onto the muddy ground as far as it would go, beaching it.
Across the clearing, there was a crack like a gunshot, as the sapling broke. The fence was sagging as the trees were squashed against it, and the branches were slowly coming down to reveal a great shiny expanse of blackness, that was moving, swelling, inching forward. The thing was slow, but it was sure, and incredibly powerful. In minutes it would break down the fence and would be starting to make its way into the compound.
There was not a moment to lose. It was time to deploy CameraBoy.
Yumiko leapt out onto the bank, then reached over and tugged the metallic trunk containing CameraBoy, sliding it over the gunwale of the boat and then pulling it up into the clearing and away from the mud. The case was heavy, but she could manage. Here was a good spot - flat and firm. She looked over at the distant boundary of the clearing, where another tree was moving, bending before the half-hidden dark mass behind it. There was still time, but she must hurry!
She sprang the catches on the trunk. Kneeling, she began to pull out the CameraBoy hardware, assembling it piece by piece. Camera, sensors, legs, satellite dish, the metal chassis containing hard drive and RAM, all could be easily slotted together. CameraBoy was a robot, an intelligent camera system mounted on a robust self-moving tripod. Actuators driven by power cells in CameraBoy's legs would allow the robot to position itself precisely and to even to walk like a three-legged metallic spider. Now the machine was complete - Yumiko flicked the on-switch. As the mechanism came to life and booted up, she ran to the boat, fetched her bag and deftly, expertly repaired her makeup, adjusted her clothes. She slipped an audio receiver into her right ear, attached a tiny mike to her lapel.
Electric motors hummed. An insectoid camera head turned this way and that, light sensors calibrating. The satellite receiver whined, the dish turning like some kind of mobile metallic flower at the back of the machine's head. CameraBoy settled itself down, feet planting themselves solidly. There was an orderly sequence of tiny adjustments as it started to do what it did best - process data. Glancing over into a LCD monitor which had unfurled from the shoulder of the mechanism, Yumiko saw an image of herself, trim, pretty, photogenic, ready to go.
'Hello, Yumiko,' said CameraBoy.
Tohomura was like a ghost town, its buildings empty and silent. The policeman brought his car to a standstill and they all got out. Takeshi cupped his hands around his mouth, called out twice, but there was no response, but for a moment they waited, uneasy in that eerie quietness. Then 'Look!' said Masao, pointing.
Something had carved a wide swathe of destruction through the fields at the edge of the village, flattening all plant growth including the larger trees, which had been toppled and uprooted. Here and there the thing had smashed its way through sheds and outhouses, reducing them to matchwood. The trail led from the forest to the south, skimmed the borders of the town and re-entered the jungle to the north.
Yumiko must be somewhere ahead of them, although there was no sign that she had passed this way. All was quiet and deathly still.
They approached warily, wrinkling their noses at the strong odour of rotting vegetation. 'Shit!' said Takeshi, stepping back as his shoe was caught in a gluey deposit of hardening slime. The stuff was everywhere.
Grimly the three men began to follow the slug's path, vanishing into the darkness of the trees.
These were the longest five minutes in Yumiko's life, as she waited for CameraBoy to make the satellite link. Ominous sounds came from behind her, a vast creaking as the monster slowly bore down on the ruins of the fence. Turning her head, she could see, in the distance, a mass of broken trees splaying out from the forest's edge. Behind it, still mostly concealed by the foliage, was a great clot of blackness on the move. Another few minutes and it would be out of the jungle and loose in the clearing behind her.
Yumiko found herself shuddering in fear. That thing was the size of a dinosaur!
She breathed deeply, controlling herself. Big it might be, but it was slow. It was nothing but a mollusc, after all. If it crawled her way, she would be able to walk easily out of its path, even CameraBoy would be able to evade it. She was in no danger at all.
But she jumped when her earpiece chimed. 'Yumiko!' It was the voice of the studio director at Sakura. The satellite link was up and running. She was about to be on air!
'There she is!' There was a collective gasp of excitement in Sakura Television's main studio, 1000 kilometres away in Tokyo. The narrow room was crowded with people, from the nervous technician at the CameraBoy keyboard, up to the looming presence of CEO Mr. Uchida. Even without CameraBoy's advanced pixel-tweaking airbrush function, Yumiko was looking flawlessly pretty and appealing on one of the large screens above the room's consoles. In her feminine, faux-camouflage safari suit, she looked like the living embodiment of some old-time explorer's dream companion. She had taken off her hat, and her perfectly arranged hair gleamed in the hazy sunlight. Behind her they could glimpse the forest edge, and there, in the distance, something impossibly gigantic was emerging.
'Yumiko, we have eight minutes before we go live,' said the studio director. 'Can you get CameraBoy to zoom in on the creature?'
'Will do,' said Yumiko. The quality of the visual feed and two-way audio, via the satellite link was excellent. Mr. Uchida was beaming. His gamble was paying off - not only was the studio about to score an incredible coup, but he was also satisfying (for a while at least) the demands of his ambitious young mistress. Now Yumiko was directing the robot to zoom in on the distant trees, using a second lens. The machine's motion-sensing software kicked in smoothly, started to track the monstrous form that was slowly coming forth.
There were gasps of amazement from all present, both in the control room and in the news studio nearby, where an anchorman waited, along with a panel of guests including a university professor who was an expert on molluscs. They had all been here since early morning, when Yumiko's brief call to headquarters had got everything moving. Sakura Television had been showing re-runs of old game shows, but had periodically alerted viewers that an important announcement was coming. The news at midday, about an hour from now, would of course heavily feature the slug story, but in a few moments' time, the game show now playing would be interrupted with the first live (and spectacular!) broadcast from Tomogushima. Television history was about to be made.
'Five minutes,' said the studio director. He started to give Yumiko a description of the people in the news studio and a list of the questions they would ask. She was relaxing, as her television persona began to take over, fear turning to confidence and a growing raw excitement. She was about to become a true TV star!
There was a loud crash in the distance, as a fence post broke. Glancing into the LCD monitor on CameraBoy, Yumiko found herself momentarily transfixed, holding her breath. She heard a sudden outburst of mingled curses and prayers from the people in the control room.
Namekujira had broken down the last of the barriers preventing it from entering the clearing. Now, vast and unhurried as a battleship, it was gliding out from the shelter of the trees. It was a glistening river of flesh, black as tar, looming as high as a two-storey building at its centre, tapering gradually towards the rear. Most of that was the slug's foot, colossal and slime-exuding, upon which was set its round gleaming bulge of a mantle. It flowed smoothly, ponderously over the ground, like molasses pouring out of some giant vat, with a rumble that was almost below the human range of hearing, but which Yumiko fancied she could feel deep in her gut. At its front end reared a gargantuan star-shaped head, ringed with tentacles of varying sizes but even the smallest of these were fatter than a person's arm. As Namekujira slid out into the open, this head quested blindly to and fro with a kind of elephantine deliberation.
The control room fell silent - everyone was staring open-mouthed at the monster.
'Is Yumiko safe?' the studio director wanted to know. 'That thing, it's just so - '
'Oh, she's quite safe,' pronounced Mr. Uchida, in a tone that brooked no argument. 'My experts have assured me there's no danger at all.'
Alone, in a deserted field, with that gigantic thing at her back, Yumiko was feeling anything but safe, even though the monster was still a good eighty metres away. But her moment was coming, her destiny awaited her. In a few moments' time, she would be making television history. She smiled into the lens in front of her, glancing sidelong into the monitor screen at CameraBoy's shoulder. Her heart was thumping madly, a bead of sweat was making its ticklish way down her cleavage. Nevertheless, she looked as happy, collected, perky and winsomely feminine as she had ever looked in her life.
'Two minutes,' said the studio director.
Following the slug's trail through the forest was difficult, sweaty work - there was the dense undergrowth to contend with, as well as the sticky, malodorous traces of slime. Takeshi, falling behind the others, heard a strange rushing noise through the trees off to the right. Stopping to listen, he realised that it was the river - they were very close to the water.
A strong feeling of foreboding came over him. Earlier, he had considered making a phone call to Sakura TV headquarters to let them know what had
happened, but he hadn't made that call, still hoping he would catch up with Yumiko, save the situation without the studio being involved. But that had been a mistake - he saw it clearly now. Yumiko would be in touch with the studio already, if she were planning to go ahead with the broadcast. What had she told them?
They had no evidence that she had taken a car and come here by road from Ebiramachi. That left - what?
The river.
Takeshi opened his mouth to call to the others, but then came a shout from up ahead. He struggled through the forest to join Masao and the policeman, found them standing at the edge of a small clearing. The slug had made its way through here, there was plenty of slime and smashed plant life.
There were other things in the clearing. There was a light mattress at the centre, crushed and smeared. At the edge of the trail, untouched, were two sets of clothes, neatly stacked. The policeman was holding up a bottle of shochu, a local spirit as potent as vodka. The bottle was empty, as were two glasses which lay abandoned on a nearby tree stump.
There was a wallet and a small purse among the clothes, and these contained ID which confirmed that one set of garments belonged to a teenage boy and the other belonged to a teenage girl, both locals.
Masao was staring at the distended, crumpled remains of the mattress. 'What happened here?' he said, 'Where are these kids?'
The policeman took off his spectacles, polished them nervously. 'I think they came out here to - make love. They also must have drunk all the liquor in this bottle. It's strong local stuff, it would have knocked them out quite quickly. And then...'
'The slug arrived,' said Masao. 'And it -'
'It ate them,' said Takeshi. He shuddered, picturing to himself the two bodies, twined in each other's arms, and the monster approaching. They would have been dead to the world, and it had swallowed them up like two naked little snacks. Which meant -
'Yumiko's in great danger!' White-faced, Takeshi was speaking rapidly, fumbling with his cellphone. 'I think she came here by boat, she's probably far ahead of us. And that thing has now consumed two human beings. It can generate human pheromones! If she finds it, it will - ' He broke off, staring at his phone. It was showing 'NO SIGNAL'. 'Shit. Masao - do you have a cellphone with you?'
Masao was shaking his head. 'There's the radio in my patrol car,' said the policeman. As if fleeing from something in a nightmare, the three men turned and plunged back into the forest, crashing through the trees and slipping on the slime in their path, desperate in their haste to get to the car.
'My question is - what is the creature's food source, exactly?' It was the university professor, the expert on molluscs. He had a quavery, nasal voice.
'The Pacific Whale Slug is carnivorous by nature,' explained Yumiko. 'We think that as it got bigger, it was able to eat ever larger prey, including the native wild pigs and even beached whales. However, it is not known to attack humans.' She smiled prettily, aware that millions were watching her on their TV sets across Japan. The thought excited her so much that she wanted to laugh uproariously or break out in song. She contained herself.
Another caller, some kind of archaeologist guy, was saying 'In prehistoric times, Tomogushima suffered several mass disappearances of its entire
population. Could it be that giant slugs ate them?'
'A human can outrun a slug any day,' retorted Yumiko, brightly. 'We're faster, more intelligent and more highly evolved! So it's unlikely. Next question?'
A teenage girl asked 'Will you take a ride on his back?'
'That's a sweet idea,' said Yumiko, laughing, 'but I don't think I will until we know it's definitely safe!'
She glanced sideways at the monitor screen at CameraBoy's shoulder, to keep track of what the monster was doing; it was still slowly making its way towards the middle of the field. Even at this distance, she felt uneasiness at its sheer size. Even if the thing ate grass and leaves, rather than large animals, she would not ever want to get close to it. The thought of putting a hand out and touching that mucus-glistening, tar-like skin sent shivers down her spine. And as for going anywhere near the creature's front end and its voracious buccal cavity, no way.
At Ebiramachi Police Headquarters, a crowd had gathered, worried relatives of two teenagers who had been reported missing just an hour ago. Each family had thought the pair were with the others, until the truth had finally dawned. A lone police sergeant was making a long-distance phone call, trying to make his voice heard above the din.
In Sakura TV's Tokyo control room, CEO Uchida was smiling to himself in the semi-darkness. Yumiko was proving to be a natural - photogenic, sassy, cute, a true star in the making. And the viewers were loving this! The office was being bombarded by phone calls from the public, other networks, universities, scientific institutions. This was surely the exclusive of the century.
An underling from the press office burst in, disturbing Uchida's reverie. 'The police in Tomogushima are on the line,' he announced. 'They say it's urgent - our people are in danger.'
'Danger?' said Uchida. 'We can see Yumiko on the screen over there, it's obvious that she isn't in danger. They must be talking about Takeshi Honda.'
'Is Honda with her?' asked the studio director. A lively debate had started in the newsroom between the professor and the archaeologist, so there was the chance to have a quick word with Yumiko. 'Is Takeshi with you?' the studio director asked her.
'No, I think he's back at the hotel,' Yumiko said.
'Is there anyone with you?'
She paused. 'No,' she replied. 'I'm on my own here.'
They all glanced at one another. Uchida turned to his subordinate from the press office. 'Tell the police that Honda must be in trouble somewhere. Tell them to check with the hotel. I don't know, just get rid of them.'
'She's all by herself there, I don't like it,' said the studio director, uneasily.
'She's a big girl,' said Uchida, 'and she can take care of herself very well. We'll wrap up the broadcast shortly. In the meantime, gentlemen, I suggest you concentrate on doing your own jobs.'
In deserted Tohomura, they huddled around the patrol car's radio. 'HQ are back on the line,' said the policeman, raising the receiver to his ear. A puzzled expression appeared on his face, then. 'They're telling me that Yumiko is perfectly safe,' he said. 'They're saying that Takeshi Honda is in danger.'
'Give me that!' shouted Takeshi, making a lunge for the radio.
One second she was smiling at the camera, poised to field the next series of questions from the studio. The next second she was ducking frantically. There had been a loud bang, a detonation from the direction of the monster - it had sounded like some sort of bomb. Not trusting the screen, Yumiko swivelled round. Namekujira was at the centre of the clearing, a good sixty or seventy metres away. It had stopped its forward motion but the beast's head with all its glistening tentacles was sweeping slowly this way and that.
Yumiko shivered. The creature looked as though it were searching for something. An instant earlier, she thought she had glimpsed something like a fine mist jetting out from its pneumostome, the large blowhole at the side of its mantle. The stuff had sprayed out, then vanished.
She heard a babble of voices in her earpiece - back in the studio they had also heard the bang. 'Are you okay?' the studio director was asking.
'Yes, I'm fine,' she responded.
'What happened there?'
'I - I don't know.' She laughed nervously. 'Maybe it just - sneezed?'
'We'll wrap up in a moment, so just sit tight. Just a couple more questions from the studio and then we'll cut.'
'Okay.' Yumiko began to relax again. She would soon be able to finish the broadcast and move further off, get away from the thing's vicinity. The monster was seriously freaking her out now. It was just sitting there, tentacled head slowly casting to and fro.
The experts over in the news studio were getting more vociferous, causing a delay as the anchorman waited for a gap in the flow of words. Yumiko waited too, feeling the heat of the sun on her head and body. Was it just her, or was it getting hotter all of a sudden? She shifted irritably, aware of the prickly weight of her clothes. When she got back to the hotel she would take a long swim, she thought, that would be nice. She imagined the cool water on her bare skin.
'Molluscs in no way pose a threat to human beings,' the professor was arguing. 'Your statement, sir, is irresponsible, and furthermore...' Yumiko tuned the voices out, continued to wait for her cue. Caught up in their futile arguments, how typical of men, she thought. She found herself dwelling on men and then remembering her encounters of the night before, and to her surprise and amusement she realised she was becoming horny.
Great, she thought, when I really want a man, there's not a single one in sight. Snap out of it, there will be plenty of time for that later.
But she was unable to snap out of it. Standing there in the warm sunlight, what she increasingly wanted to do was step out of her uncomfortable clothes, grab the nearest red-blooded male and fuck him like there was no tomorrow.
This was getting ridiculous. What on earth had suddenly come over her? She shook her head irritably, trying to concentrate. But it was no use. She itched - that was the only way she could describe it. She itched for sex, and the urge was getting stronger minute by minute.
The voices in the studio had paused, but Yumiko by now had had enough. She took off her sunglasses. Grasping the sleeves of her jacket she pulled it off over her head, dumping it on the ground nearby. That's better, she thought, feeling the breeze on her bare arms. Someone was jabbering in an irritating way, so she unhooked her audio receiver from her ear and dumped that too. Just before the device came free, she thought she heard someone say her name but it didn't matter now. None of that mattered now.
'What's going on?' the studio director wanted to know. 'Yumiko? Yumiko!'
'It's no use,' said the tech at his console. 'She dropped her earpiece, she can't hear us.'
'Something's not right - we need to talk to her, can you patch me in to the robot's external speaker?'
'Will do,' said the tech, mouse clicking as he navigated through options on the CameraBoy interface.
Yumiko was becoming aware of strange sounds coming from the field at her back. She turned to look, uncomfortably aware of the giant slug's presence fifty metres away. It sounded like birds twittering, but the sounds were loud, frenzied. Then she saw them - birds of all kinds fighting in the long grass around her. There was a repeated fluttering of wings, as the birds desperately fought one another.
Then she realised - they were not fighting. The birds were mating.
'Hurry!' said the studio director. 'We need to communicate through the external speaker - what's holding you up?'
'I'm sorry,' said the tech. All eyes were on him and he was beginning to sweat. 'It's not working, she must have blocked remote access to the robot. I can't make it respond from here.'
'Keep trying.'
Watching the frantic birds, Yumiko was again becoming aware of her clothes. Clammy, heavy, awkward, they were imprisoning her, it was intolerable. Taking the neck of her black T-shirt in one hand, she whipped it off in one swift movement. She was wearing a sports bra underneath. She unhooked it and took that off too. Now she was bare-breasted in the sunlight and it felt so good she found herself smiling with pleasure.
There was an audible gasp from everyone in the control room. 'Switch back to the newsroom now,' commanded the studio director.
'I - can't,' said the tech. 'The software's not responding.'
'I don't care, just do it now. Switch over to the newsroom now!'
Once she had started, she couldn't stop. She unfastened her tight-fitting, restrictive boots and pulled them off, one after the other. The she loosened her pants, pushed them down, stepped out of them. Her knickers followed. Now she was completely, utterly, gloriously naked. She threw her arms up into the air, jumped for joy, felt the moist earth and grass under her bare toes. She was ready for action!
'Has the world gone mad?' shouted CEO Uchida. 'What in hell is she doing? Cut transmission. Cut transmission now!'
'We're trying, sir!' snapped the studio director.
'Nothing is responding,' stammered the tech as he tried option after option on the interface. 'The software is hanging at this end - it got no response from the remote unit and it's just waiting. I can't get it to do anything. This scenario was never tested,' he finished lamely.
'Reboot!', said the studio director. 'Or just switch it off. Kill the power!'
Yumiko, standing mother-naked in the forest clearing, was finding her itch more and more difficult to deal with. She wanted sex now! She caressed and fondled her breasts, moaning as her nipples hardened, then slid her hand down between her thighs, feeling the slick warmth of her cunt and slipping her fingers in to coax and stimulate her clitoris.
It wasn't working. She needed something bigger, something harder!
Her blood seemed to be on fire, she was burning up with sheer carnal need. Looking round, she caught sight of CameraBoy and recoiled in surprise, as if seeing the robot for the first time. Her eyes went from its antenna to its lenses to its viewscreen to its tripodal legs. Typical. It appeared to have been designed with nothing that even remotely resembled a dick!
But then she remembered. 'Mr. Reliable!' she cried, heading over to where her bag lay in the grass. CameraBoy tracked her automatically as she ran. How could she have forgotten! She rummaged in the bag, then with a shout of triumph she pulled out her faithful standby - it was a vibrator, 30 centimeters of smooth moulded plastic and electronics. She crouched on the ground, impaled herself with the glans-shaped bulb of the vibrator, giving a little gasp of satisfaction as the shaft slid deep into her - definitely no lubricants needed this time. Yumiko's trembling fingers switched it on, took it to the highest setting. Oh, that felt good!
Eyes closed in pleasure, she rocked back and forth on her hands and the balls of her feet, the vibrator humming as it went to work.
For a second or so the control room was plunged into darkness, relieved only by the dim red-tinged glow of emergency lighting.
'Power's off,' said the studio director. 'Now we can - what the -'
The lights came back on. The screens flickered to life. There was Yumiko, achingly pretty and completely naked, having frenzied sex with her battery-powered device.
Desperately, the technician tried to cut the power again. And failed. 'Can't do it!' he gasped, peering at the diagnostics on his screen. 'CameraBoy software was integrated with all systems controlling the studio and the whole building. If we pull the plug, it thinks we're having an emergency such as an earthquake - it's going into disaster-recovery mode and restoring the power automatically. And the routine that supervises transmission is still frozen!'
'This is going out live to the nation.' The studio director was holding his face in his hands. 'Shit!'
Uchida stepped in. 'Go down to the basement,' he ordered the tech. 'The fuse room is there. Just go down and manually pull the fuses out, or smash the circuit breakers, whatever. Jump to it!' White-faced, the tech hurried to obey.
Over the fluttering, twittering noises of the birds, Yumiko suddenly heard loud grunting sounds. She opened her eyes to see two wild pigs, one male and one female, that had come running from the edge of the forest. Now the boar was mounting the sow, the animal's loins heaving as he thrust rhythmically into her. The pigs seemed completely unaware of Yumiko, or of the giant slug, which was now on the move again. Like some kind of distant dark wall, the monster was beginning to slide towards the river.
It was heading in Yumiko's direction.
She was getting no satisfaction from the vibrator now. Gritting her teeth, she was willing herself to have that climax, but continually hovered just on the edge, unable to let herself come. This was unprecedented. She shrieked in frustration. As if to taunt her, the sow began to squeal loudly as the boar pounded away on her. 'She's had her fun, piggy,' Yumiko muttered, 'why don't you come over and do me too.' She writhed in the grass, plunged the vibrator in up to the hilt, back out again, in again, out again, grunting in sync with the boar.
'What's keeping you?' The studio director was holding a cellphone to his ear.
'Has that idiot found the fuse box yet?' asked Uchida.
'The fuse room's locked,' the director told him, 'the janitor has the key but he's not in his office!'
'Shit!'
The assistant director, a tubby man in his thirties, was also using his cellphone. 'There's good news and bad,' he told the others.
'The good news?' barked Uchida.
'The good is that almost all Sakura TV broadcasts have been successfully switched off, nationwide. The bad, as we know, is that the Tokyo Metropolitan Area transmission is still going ahead. And also - '
'What?'
'Look at the screen.'
They looked.
'Oh, shit,' said Uchida.
Like a vast dark cloud, Namekujira was approaching. The monster slug was moving at a frightening pace, closing the distance rapidly. It was ignoring the birds, crushing them under its gigantic slimy foot. It was ignoring the wild pigs as they squealed and tupped.
It was making a direct line for Yumiko.
On hands and knees in the grass, she glimpsed the black wall of living flesh slide nearer and nearer. It was now twenty metres away and closing. For an instant the fog of hormones cleared and she realised her predicament. The pheromones - somehow it must have obtained human pheromones and had just sneezed out a concentrated cloud of those treacherous particles, using them to capture her. She must move - now. She must run! There was still time. If she broke away, got into the boat and pushed out into the river, she would be safe.
But she found herself unable to run.
She found herself continuing to kneel in front of the approaching monster, stupidly pumping her vibrator in and out of her hot, engorged cunt, as if trying to emulate a piston engine. Sheer terror flooded through her, warring with the lust, neither winning. She wanted to come, dammit! The fear was preventing her from climaxing, no matter how hard she tried.
A great shadow blotted out the sun.
She looked up, and some momentary instinct of self-preservation caused to raise her hands over her head in defence. A single tear welled from one long-lashed eye. Her lips, still coated in frosted-pink lip gloss, parted as she prepared to scream.
The slug's enormous, tentacle-lined head was slowly coming down to take her.
As it had grown in size, Namekujira's anatomy had subtly changed. Its smaller, garden-variety self had feasted using its radula, a rough, toothy, tongue-like organ, to tear and shred its prey. Now, in the slug's monster phase, the radula had evolved, swelling and softening as it had become a muscular hollow snout, extending from the centre of the creature's star-shaped head and tipped with three blunt fingers, like the nubs at the end of an elephant's trunk, with which it could push and probe and taste. The slug was now extruding this massive feeding organ, reaching down towards the naked girl on the grass.
She felt the cool, damp fingers of the radula touch her bare arms, once, twice, again. The touch was delicate, tentative, almost as if the slug was uncertain of itself. Trembling from head to toe, Yumiko had a brief moment of hope - maybe it didn't want her, maybe it would leave her alone.
But then, as if making a firm decision, the slug's mouthpart returned, sliding down like a hood over her hands, her arms, her head. She felt the coldness and wetness of its touch at her throat. Her head was in total darkness and she opened her mouth to scream - her lips encountered the slimy insides of the slug's feeding trunk, and she had the coldest, dampest, sloppiest and most repellent kiss of her life. A miasma of rotting vegetation filled her nostrils and she found herself helplessly gagging.
In the Sakura TV control room, they watched as the monster began to engulf Yumiko. Up close, the monster's glistening tar-like hide was not black but a dark mottled grey-green, contrasting sharply with their reporter's flawless pale skin. The creature's mouth had reached her shoulders now. Yumiko was facing away from the camera, and they could glimpse the smooth globes of her buttocks quivering, and the hilt of the vibrator as it buzzed regardless. She was still in a kneeling posture, and the soles of her slim feet were visible through the grass stems, white turning to rosy pink at her heels.
As the slug's mouth made its unhurried, relentless advance down her body, Yumiko realised that despite the sheer terror that was turning her insides to jelly, she was still in an advanced stage of arousal. Even now, as the monster was preparing to eat her up like a morsel of sashimi, she was craving, aching for, demanding sexual release. Jammed up to the hilt in her vulva, her faithful vibrator was doing its electronic best to help. And now she could feel the caress of the slug's tentacles on her back and breasts. From Takeshi's diagrams she knew that the creature had a mixture of organs at the front of its head; some were eye-stalks and others were for touching and tasting. It was the latter which were exploring her nakedness, sliding wetly over her nipples, causing her to moan in mingled pleasure and frustration. Even the coldness of the slug's mouthparts as they rubbed over her was beginning to feel deliciously sensual.
She raged against her body and its stupid desires which had so thoroughly hijacked and betrayed her. But rage and terror were no match for the overwhelming lust that was swamping her brain with its chemicals, turning her into a sexual meat-puppet that twitched at every tug on her strings.
Now the mouth had slid down to her navel and she began to feel it tighten around her. She was being lifted! She felt her knees brush the grass stems as her legs rose up from the ground. Then she was kicking, and there was nothing but air under her toes.
In the control room, they watched helplessly as the slug raised Yumiko from the ground. It rotated ponderously, tentacles slowly writhing, until Yumiko was now facing the camera, although all they could see of her was her lower body. Her smooth, pretty legs were one moment kicking, as if even at this late stage she were trying to wriggle free, and the next they were rubbing against one another in sensual abandon. Out came the vibrator, its shaft shining with moisture as it slid down and fell, becoming lost in the grass. They could then glimpse her pale shaven mons and the dilated red bud of her cunt, itself open like a voracious mouth, demanding to be filled.
At that moment, the underling from the press office burst into the control room, babbling something about phone calls. Catching sight of the screen, he fell silent, gaping as he saw Sakura's pretty reporter dangling nude from the slimy maw of the monster.
'Get out!' roared Uchida, breaking the silence and physically shoving his employee out of the room.
Momentarily the slug seemed to lose suction, and down Yumiko slithered. Her midriff came back into view as she slid out, and then out popped her round breasts, shiny with slime, the nipples dark and swollen. Her toes touched the ground - and then the slug resumed its efforts. Those in the control room could see the greenish-grey slug flesh ripple as it drew Yumiko back up again. Now she was going all the way - once more her quivering breasts were sucked back up out of view, and then she was disappearing rapidly, like someone undergoing a monstrous form of unbirth. Her belly, pudenda and hips were gone, the long muscles in her thighs twitched as her legs were drawn swiftly up. And then there were only her bare feet protruding from the slug's mouthparts. They looked unutterably tiny, like the feet of a little girl. Her toes wiggled once, and she flexed her left foot. And then she was gone. They were all looking at an unbroken view of slug hide - Yumiko had been completely consumed.
Tentatively, the assistant director was holding out his cellphone to Uchida. 'The Ebiramachi police are on the line,' he said, 'they're sending a chopper.'
Uchida did not respond. He remained staring at the screen, oblivious to those around him. The expression on his face was unreadable.
Then the control room was plunged into darkness. The hapless young tech had opened the fuse room door, finally, and shut off all power to the building. There was silence. Everyone was standing motionless in the dim glow of the emergency lights, and no-one said a thing.
Yumiko was in total blackness but could feel that she was being moved vertically, then horizontally through the innards of the monster. She assumed she was now inside its buccal cavity, the place that she had resolved earlier never ever to go near. Her body was propelled both by suction and by a powerful peristaltic action, the thick blubbery tissue around her flexing as it squeezed her onwards. But then she sensed her forward motion was slowing down, stopping.
The slug had done with swallowing her whole. Now it wanted to examine the morsel it had caught.
She felt the walls of the cavity tighten around her in the darkness, the cool, slippery slug flesh pressing up against every inch of her skin, as intimate as some sort of body glove, as flexible as latex but softer, muscular and unmistakably sentient. Pseudopods of slug tissue were sliding up and down her chest, her back, her neck, her legs, searching, exploring, tasting. She felt she was being probed, analysed like a helpless sample of organic matter in a lab, and the thought triggered a fresh flood of terror.
But the terror was no match for the lust which was still burning within her. Stronger than ever was the urge to climax now, and the fact that she was being devoured by a giant mollusc made no difference. She wanted to come! And the intimate touch of this elastic, muscular flesh over the totality of her bare skin was starting to drive her insane with desire.
Pseudopods like miniature ad-hoc tentacles were touching her throat, the soles of her feet, her ears, investigating her lips. A cold sensation around the rim of her anus announced another finger of slug tissue, probing, tasting. And one found her cunt. It slid into her, found that it could penetrate further and began to swell and thicken, pushing between her labia, rubbing up against the warm nub of her clitoris.
It felt like she was being fucked by Death.
Anoxia was starting to take its toll. The cavity had shrunk around Yumiko's head and face, and the bubble of air that had been swallowed with her, was being used up fast. Oxygen deprivation was beginning to set in. Her thoughts were becoming hazy, her terror and panic were fading, as her brain began to go into its terminal spasms.
She had once strangled a lover and been strangled by him in turn. She remembered fastening a black hood over his face and tightening a noose around his neck. She had given him a hand-job then, pumping him until he spurted like a bottle of celebratory champagne. Then it was her turn. She had stood on the chair and he had pulled the black silk hood over her face. The ligature was tightening and she had felt pain - and then a total, overwhelming rush of pleasure. Supporting her with his hands, her partner had thrust his fingers up into the lubricious warmth of her cunt and aroused her quickly to an orgasm she would never forget. It had partly been the danger, the relinquishing of all control, the thought that he could so easily drop her and let her struggle and die.
It had been so intense that she had never allowed herself to play that game again.
Now, in the belly of the giant mollusc, anoxia was once again her ally, propelling her towards the climax that she craved. Her lips parted, allowing a tongue-like mass of tissue to enter her mouth in a slimy lover's kiss. Her eyes rolled up in her head. She opened her legs for Death, parting her thighs to let the pseudopod in her cunt slide even deeper and wax fatter inside her.
The orgasm burst suddenly as a thunderstorm after days of drought. Dying, Yumiko convulsed, returning the slug's kiss with a hard thrusting of her tongue, hips pumping, feet and hands flexing crazily against the soft weight of slug tissue that restrained them. A hot wave of unutterable, terminal pleasure rolled up from the nerve endings in her vagina to break like a tsunami against the crumbling walls of her brain. She felt her warm juices spurting, mingling with the slug's juices. Shaking, writhing, crying tears of joy, she embraced the wave, gave herself up to it completely, let it take her and then wash her out to sea. As consciousness faded, as her limbs began to relax and cease their fluttering, her life essence fled away and she was at peace.
Smoothly, without pause, Namekujira continued to process its food. It sent its probes deep into Yumiko's body cavities, tasting, sampling all the warm, biological richness within. Then it began to shift her body once more, sliding her down into its crop. Now liberally coated, inside and out, with slug mucus and saliva, Yumiko was ripe for digestion. The slug's glands had been working overtime, pumping huge quantities of fluid, laden with powerful enzymes, into its oesophagus. Vast, rippling movements of peristalsis turned Yumiko's naked corpse this way and that, encouraging the digestive fluid to start its work of breaking her down.
Digestion took several hours, and the slug moved back into the shelter of the forest while this was happening. Tossing and turning in her cold bath, Yumiko was beginning her transformation into soup. Her beautiful, flawless skin loosened and was peeled from her, fragmenting as it did so. Her internal organs softened, liquefied. The slug harvested valuable proteins and polysaccharides from the stew, absorbing satisfying amounts of fatty acids from the remains of her once perky breasts and buttocks. Bones were leached of their nutrients and compacted, ending up in a stream of non-digestible matter that would later be mixed with mucus in the slug's intestine and finally expelled in a sticky, stringy trail of excrement from its anus. However, very little of Yumiko Kimura would go to waste.
Namekujira had no brain, but the cluster of nerve fibres that governed its mighty chemical factory was the closest it had to one. Yumiko was the third human it had ingested, and prized specimens of her brain chemicals - hormones, pheromones, all manner of intimate substances - were catalogued and stored deep in the slug's mantle, ready for later use, alongside their analogues from a host of other species. The slug was by instinct a collector of such materials and lost no time in adding Yumiko's signature chemicals to its armoury. When it next encountered humans, it would be readier, more potent, more formidable. Meal by meal, it was becoming a more efficient predator. In that way, part of Yumiko would live on - in the darkest recesses of the mollusc, she would still be remembered.
At dawn, two F-2 jet fighter planes from the Japanese Marine Self-Defence Force came screaming in over the mangroves, air-to-ground missiles and rotary cannon at the ready. Banking low over the river near Tohomura the pilots immediately located CameraBoy with their radar arrays, and were able to see the robot a few seconds later, as it sat motionless and forlorn in the empty clearing.
But of Namekujira there was no sign.
Hours later, a large typhoon struck the island, the high winds and driving rain delaying any further searches. When ground forces finally reached the area, the trail was old. The creature's slime had been mostly washed away and it was difficult to distinguish damage caused by the slug from damage caused by the typhoon.
However, in a matter of days, a dedicated group of searchers, led by Takeshi and Masao, took up the monster's trail and followed it up into the hills. Here there were ancient mine workings, and places where the coal mines had been expanded and transformed in wartime by the Japanese Imperial Army into systems of dugouts and bunkers that riddled the hills and stretched for miles deep underground. Following the trail, the searchers ventured into the darkness, but did not venture far. One and all, they felt an overwhelming claustrophobic dread and with relief chose to turn round and emerge once more into the light.
In the manner of its tiny, garden-variety cousins, Namekujira had sought sanctuary in the dank, deep places of the earth. There it waited. It bided its time.
Sakura TV stayed in business, but in response to the fiasco, Uchida offered his resignation as CEO, which was accepted. Now he spent his days at home, tending to his invalid wife.
When there were no visitors, and when his wife was asleep, Uchida would go into his study, lock his door, lower the blinds. He would pour himself a glass of whisky and switch on his TV. From behind his bookcase, he would pull out an unlabelled DVD and slide it into the DVD player.
He would press play.
THE END