Chapter 6: Trinidad, California
The early afternoon on Sunday, November 1st, 2015, a cool, humid and partly cloudy day in Trinidad, California. The seaside harbor town, known for its breathtakingly rugged coastline, nearby redwoods, multiple public beaches and historical landmarks is one of California's smallest and oldest incorporated cities. Fishing and local tourism make up the vital components of the town's economic livelihood.
South of the town along a steep eroding sea cliff is the Trinidad Memorial Lighthouse. Leading downhill from it is an inclined trail making its way to the beach below. On the west side of town is the Humboldt State University's Fred Telonicher Marine Laboratory, where marine science students test experiments and takes classes. The homes making up Trinidad vary in style from contemporary custom, coastal cottage, mid-century and a few with vestigial Italianate Victorian aesthetics.
The local landscape of the town is made up of a series of gradual marine terraces and steep slopes. Jetting out southwest of the town along a stretch of sandy beaches and parking area is a rocky promontory, or high point of land extending out into the sea, called Trinidad Head. Several rocky sea stacks shelter the Trinidad Bay's harbor and pier.
In the waters on the far side of Trinidad Head, a scuba diver pops his head out. He looks at the side of the rocky shore; his dinghy was still tied up to a rock, gently bobbling up and down on the surface. He dives back down, ridding a dive scooter. He swam towards the underside of the boat, then next to it. The scuba diver popped out again. He threw in his dinghy several barnacle-ridden ropes, at least a dozen rusted metal items from the watery depths below, and six black Rock Cods, impaled on an arm-sized barbed spear. He then dropped his dive scooter in the dinghy and pulled himself up inside it. He took his scuba mask and breathing equipment off. He was an old Japanese man in his early seventies, unusually healthy, fit and strong for his age.
"Either the water's gotten colder, or I'm just getting really old. Time to check back!"
He slipped off his foot fins and paddled back to the Trinidad Pier using worn-down kayak paddles. Once he got to a lower dock connecting to the pier, he threw his catch in a black knapsack, riddled with black and grey duct tape and stitch marks. He took off the small amount of scuba gear he had on and placed it in a smaller brown knap pack. He proceeded to lock the oxygen tanks and other equipment in a small compartment in the dinghy. The old man checked his digital watch inside one of the knapsack pockets.
"2:06 pm. Good; more than enough time to get this cooked. Hope the Northwest's like this kind of cod," he said eagerly to himself, pulling the fish off the barbed spear and placing them in a small cooler with ice.
He grabbed his bag of stuff and tied his dinghy to the dock. He slipped on a pair of jeans, shoes and wind breaker and went on his way.
The old man saw several of his past coworkers/fishing buddies from the marine laboratory in the parking lot, getting their fishing equipment and prepping their boats for launch. One man, in his fifties wearing blue jeans, a grey shirt and brown jacket with a beer gut waived the old man down.
"Hey! How ya doing. It's been a while."
"Really good Mel! I'm still scuba diving in my spare time. I just caught some rock cod for dinner," the old man said, raising his cooler high in the air triumphantly with a big smile on his face.
"Good on ya. You know, we still miss you at the laboratory. Retirement must be heavenly."
"The only difference is that I'm scuba diving on my one time now."
"Well, I'll see you around. Give us a call when ever you feel like it, and enjoy that cod tonight."
"Thanks! Good luck with the fishing."
The old man walked the uphill road; it was a very short trek to his home, the first one on Van Wycke St, visible from the parking lot down below. It was a small, simple and plain home, tan in color with a beautiful head-on view of the Trinidad Head and the Bay's harbor and pier. There was no fencing on his property. The grass lawn surrounding the property made most of the property outline.
On his lawn near a shrub in the middle of the yard was a young white sixteen year old. He was tall, lengthy with long black hair. He was laying on his back pack, barefoot with his flip flops to the side, listening to an Ipod, rocking his head back and forth. The old man walked over, poking his shoulder with the soft end of his barbed spear.
"Good afternoon Lance."
"Hi Uncle," he said, taking his earphones off, putting them in his baggy short pockets. "Did you catch anything?"
"Sure did. Rock Cod. I'll gut them if you cook them."
"You got it. By the way, my parents are going to be late. They're meeting lasted longer than expected and are still driving from San Francisco."
"That's a hell of a drive. Don't worry. I caught six of them, so there should be plenty left over."
"I don't know Uncle. I'm really hungry."
"I'll give you three fish then...Lance, its sixty degrees out right now. Why are you wearing flip flops and shorts?"
The old man pulled Lance up. He slipped his flip flops back on.
"I like the cold. It doesn't bother me. In truth though, these are backups. Mom bought me very uncomfortable shoes, so I snuck these with me."
"Your parents need to let you shop for yourself more."
"You're preaching to the choir Uncle."
"I'll take you down to one of the shoe stores in Arcata after dinner so you can find something more comfortable. On me."
"Thank you Uncle Akira."
"No problem."
They walked across the lawn. In the curved driveway was an old white Nissan pick up.
"Did you finish your homework yet?"
"Just a few more earth science and calculus problems. It'll be quick work."
Akira got to the front door and dropped his things on the step. As he was about to unlock the front door, a low reverberation started echoing across the landscape.
"You felt that, right Uncle?"
"Probably a small earthquake...uh oh."
The ground began shaking violently underneath them. A thunderous rumble rolled all around. Lance and Akira were rocked back and forth in the small entryway, slamming into the side wall hard.
"Lance! Back to the front yard; we'll be safer there!" Akira said trying to keep his balance. "This is going to be a big one!"
Both jogged to the center of the lawn next to the road; the asphalt was cracking wide open in several places. The roads rolled like ocean waves. Car alarms went off in all directions, most in the parking lot. Homes across the street swayed in multiple directions, the windows shattering. Most of a blue house's windows sprayed all over the driveway and road. The brown house's wooden deck on the upper floors partially leaned over; several of its windows shattered too.
Lance turned to his left; the short wooden street light leaned over and fell onto the road, taking out the stop sign/street address sign on the other side of the street.
A small plume of smoke became visible from the center of town.
Then the quake slowly subsided; within seconds the rumbling stopped altogether.
"Holy crap! That was a big one," Lance said loudly, looking at the overall scene and Akira's home.
"Yeah. This felt a bit stronger than the last one ten years ago. I'm going to inspect the house; wait here."
"Alright Uncle."
Akira headed towards the front. On the way he put back up his bird bath and ornamentals that fell to their side.
When Lance looked around the exterior of the house, he noticed that overall, it did extremely well for a big earthquake. The wooden light post was down, along with the stop sign, and next door balcony decks were leaning at an angle from the house, but still standing. The worst damage seemed to be the shattered windows on the homes and the unknown plume of black smoke in the middle of town.
Akira came out of the house.
"It's alright. Just a few things fallen off their places. Other than that, the house is in top condition."
"Should we check the neighbourhood out?" Lance asked curiously, wanting to see what had transpired.
"You go on inside and call your parents. I'm going to drive around see how the town is."
Akira drove slowly over the cracked glass-ridden road, trying to avoid as much as possible. The neighbours next door were not home. He drove down to the marine laboratory. The building didn't have a scratch or any visible damage. A faculty member was leading a bunch of college students to the parking lot area; they were noticeably scared and excited, but looked unharmed. Akira turned back into the street going left down Edwards St. The worst visible damage was some shingles falling off, a downed tree branch in a front yard, large cracks in the road and broken windows.
He turned left on Hector Street. Down the street the church's top cross was off, minuscule damage compared to a wooden light pole that smashed into a houses roof.
"I hope Winston has insurance for that."
He turned right onto Parker St, heading for the direction of the smoke plume. He glanced down the opposite side of the street for a moment; a large evergreen tree was in the middle of the road.
"Damn! I just trimmed that too!"
A police car drove slowly past him towards the tree. Akira recognized the officer in the vehicle. He stopped by him.
"What's up Akira! You okay?"
"I am George. Lance and I were outside when it happened. I'm checking to see how the town fared; he's watching the house."
"Bigger than the one in 2005, that's for sure. There's some damage around town, but it's repairable. The good news is so far there's been no injuries or deaths."
"That's good...is that plume of smoke coming from the Eatery?" Akira asked, pointing down the street.
"Yeah. The quake knocked some grease off a stove and caused a fire. You'd get a kick out of Leon's face; he's pissed! Firefighters got it under control though. The store should be back open in a week."
They looked down the street towards the eatery. An police officer was trying to shoo local residents away from the firefighter action.
"Seems like the town overall survived this earthquake virtually unscathed Akira."
"I know, right? Lance is probably checking to see if a tsunami is coming. Do you know if one is?"
"Probably not, but I recommend you assume one is. I'm still waiting for a call from USGS. If it's anything like the last one, we'll be running up the hills just to see a four-inch wave roll over the beach."
"Yeah...well, I'm heading back. We can watch it from the lighthouse. We're safe up there."
"Alright Akira. You and the Northwests stay safe. Watch out for tsunami and aftershocks," the officer said, gradually pulling away towards a small group of people down the street looking towards the smoke; they were clothed in San Francisco 49er's and Oakland Raiders football fan apparel.
Akira drove back cautiously to avoid the glass on his street. He pulled up in the driveway and pulled a broom and dust pan out of the back of the truck; within minutes he swept the glass fragments into a huge black trash bag.
"I'm getting too old for this shit. Well, that's my community service for the month," he half chuckled to himself. He looked at the downed wooden light pole for a moment.
"I'll get that with the truck later."
Akira entered his home. Lance was on the computer, pulling a bunch of news information and seismology articles from Wikipedia.
"Hey Uncle, that earthquake was a 7.5. The whole northern coast got rocked pretty good for eighteen seconds."
"I figured it was a major quake. Find anything about a tsunami."
"There's a warning in place since the earthquake was under the Gorda Plate, "Lance said reading the screen, "along the Mendocino Fault Zone. It's off our coast...HEY, I was reading about this last week in class."
"The tsunami Lance?"
"Oh, yeah...ehm...I found a tsunami inundation map for Trinidad. Looks like were safe, even if we get hit by a big wave."
"Still..."
"-which we won't most likely; a geologist from the USGS said this is just like the earthquake in 2005."
"Let's just head to the lighthouse for an hour. I'm sure nothing's going to happen, but better to be safe than sorry. Did you call your parents yet?"
"Yeah. They know we're safe and going uphill; another two hours and they'll be here. They felt it down in Leggett, can you believe it?"
"Grab some waters and snacks. We'll start cooking in an hour."
They drove down to the Trinidad Memorial Lighthouse. There were several neighbours texting and taking video of the waters down below: regular waves and coastal activity. Watching the waters slush back and forth was relaxing for Akira. For twenty-five minutes he drifted in and out of sleep on one of the seats as Lance sat on the railing, videotaping the scene.
"Say hi Uncle."
Akira smiled softly. He gave a peace sign and said hi. Lance started narrating the scene.
"Well, we should see some tsunami in a few minutes...HELLO!"
Akira choked in surprise from Lance's shout.
"...sorry Uncle. The tsunami is here."
Everyone looked out to the sea. The waves sank back a couple meters, then a small wave swept up, slightly higher than usual high tide. It wasn't big enough to reach the parking lot or the Seascape Restaurant or any of the hastily-left vehicles and boating equipment. Several boats hooked out in the ocean swirled around. The slushing and swirling was more intense than usual, but nothing really destructive or deadly. This happened four times over a span of forty minutes. Lance's narrations became more bored and uninterested. A police officer said it was clear for residents close to the beach to head home, but to remain on the hillside for another hour before it was officially declared safe.
"That's it?" Lance asked, slight disappointment in his voice, "An hour just to see a slushy dirty high tide?"
"Thank goodness for small miracles; I have a dinghy down there, "Akira laughed. "Come on Lance. Let's pick up and cook. You're parents should be here in an hour or so."
"Yeah...Uncle, look out there."
A huge fog bank was rolling in from quite a distance away, heading towards the coast.
"Wow! It almost looks like an enormous tsunami rolling in slowly," Lance said excitedly. He popped out his cellphone again and took a few last pictures. "It must extend for miles in either direction." A low gurgle surged from Lance.
"You hungry?"
"Sure am Uncle. Let's cook that cod!"
An hour later back at Akira's home they cooked up the rock cod, several large helpings of brown rice and a menagerie of cut fruits and boiled vegetables.
"My folks always do this; they say one thing and mean another," Lance huffed out, sitting at the table and annoyed at his folks not getting to the house on time for dinner. Their spots at the table empty, the food still hot and steaming. A television set was playing a show called "The New Red Green Show."
"Their careers require them to be in many places Lance. Try to be understanding and appreciative of the time you have with them. It won't last forever, believe me," Akira said warmly, then taking a small container of fish oil was next to his plate on the kitchen table.
"What do you mean by that Uncle?"
"I mean, life can be wonderful and bless us with the beauty of existence...or it can take everything away from you and make the very idea of being conscious and alive a living nightmare."
Lance was a little stunned by his uncle's words.
"That's a bit heavy to pour on Uncle, don't you think?"
"Yeah, that was. Sorry. Well, you're still pretty young and, god willing, will never have to go through some of the things other people have been through. Just want to instill the idea to appreciate the little things and strive to be thoughtful and humane. It may just save you one day."
"You know Uncle, those are some pretty good words of wisdom."
"Thank you."
"Mind if I use them for an English assignment," Lance said, grabbing his notepad. "I'll reference you of course," he said smiling.
Akira smiled and nodded. They were about to eat their dinner when Akira noticed something was off.
"Huh, I don't know why, but I feel as though...like I...damn it!"
"What's up Uncle?"
"My wallet! I forgot it in my boat. If it wasn't for the earthquake I'd have probably remembered once I went through the front door."
"Let's put a pin in dinner and get it."
"You can stay and eat if you want Lance. Sure hope the waves didn't wash it away."
"I've already scarfed down one fish. The other two can wait."
"Thank you Lance."
They left the house at 4:56 pm. Sunset was approaching. Sparse, clear misty pockets in the severely dense fog allowed one to see the twilight hues of purple, orange and pink clouds flowing in the atmosphere above, juxtaposed against the gradually increasing amount of darkness. One such pocket formed along the winding road and most of the parking lot below.
Akira and Lance saw a bunch of the boaters and fishermen in the parking lot and on the pier, prepping to head back out into the waters again. They parked to the side of Seascapes Restaurant along the green fence. A wave of fog rolled into them.
"Man, this fog got really dense! You can barely see twenty feet ahead," Lance said while waving his hand out the truck window, making it flow around him.
They got out and walked down the pier to the lower dock, past everyone trying to head back for twilight fishing. At the end was Akira's little dinghy; several inches of water and the barnacle-ridden ropes were hanging out from the sides. It survived the micro-tsunami well.
"Now where...are..you. I put it on the seat, so...there you are." He pulled his black wallet from th back corner of the dinghy, soaked and dripping. He shook it off a couple of time, accidentally getting Lance sightly wet.
"A little moist, but looks like it's in good condition, still intact. I can dry it before we go get your shoes later in Arcat-."
"Hey Akira," the beer-bellied guy from earlier in the parking lot shouted jubilantly. He was out in the harbor on his small boat, fishing rod in one hand, a beer in the other.
"Mel? You're back out already?" Akira shouted back.
"Back? What the hell do you mean? I've been out here the whole time! Why, what's up?"
"We had a major earthquake earlier today. A 7.5! Tsunami warning and all! Didn't you know?"
He rocked his body in an inebriated manner meaning no."I've been catching cod like crazy. It's like they're funnelling into the harbor. Like shooting fish in a barrel!" He yelled out, laughing and nearly falling over. Akira laughed hoarsely too. He turned to Lance and whispered, "Mel always has been a bit oblivious and hard on the buzz."
"Akira! You taking Lance out fishi-."
A large boat travelling extremely fast came out of the fog behind Mel and smashed into his boat, splitting it in two; a jagged metal rod on the other boat's bow impaled him through his left chest.
"Mel! MEL!?"
The boat carried him several dozens of feet before the side collided into a rock to the left of the pier.
"HOLY SHIT!" Lance screamed.
"LANCE, GET HELP!"
Akira jumped in his dinghy and paddled as fast as he could over to the sinking boat. Lance ran to get other fishermen to help and call 911.
Mel was sinking with the boat fast. Akira maneuverered his dinghy next to the impaled, blood-soaked man gasping on for life.
"HOLD ON MEL!"
Akira grabbed his hand and tried to pull hum out of the waters. He coughed up a huge amount of blood, then slouched into the waters face first. He stopped moving around.
"MEL! STAY AWAKE!"
Akira grabbed onto him, pulling his face as close as he could and looked into his eyes: expressionless, unresponsive and desolate. The color was gone from his face.
"Jesus Mel...HELP!"
Another boat sped over to them full of fishermen. They got next to the dingy and tried pulling Mel off the metal rod. After several attempts to pull him off several of the men jumped into the waters; they dove down under him and pushed his body, finally getting loose. The men pulled him into the boat, bloody water splashing all over them and the boat's deck and side railing.
"Shit man, I think Mel's gone," one of the fishermen choked out, fighting back tears.
"Mother of god...he...the rod must have went through his heart," another man yelled out angrily.
Akira walked over to his's soaked body with a stunned and solemn expression; he closed Mel's eyes. He looked back out into the bay, then the ocean. The fog was becoming thicker, the sights blurrier, a tone of orange and black in the twighlight.
They pulled his body up the dock and onto the pier. Lance was waiting with another fishermen with his truck. They placed Mel in the back. Several fishermen took their jackets off and covered his body. They pulled into the parking lot waiting for the ambulance to arrive.
"Goodbye my friend."
Akira, Lance and several other fishermen took a moment of silence. Discussions ensued.
"What in god's name happened?" one grungy looking fisherman with a big white bushy beard said.
"Some asshole impaled him Bert," another said. "Whoever was on that boat killed Mel. You saw what happened, didn't you Akira?"
Akira contemplated this for a moment. He couldn't recall seeing anyone on the sinking boat; he only remembered that the deckhouse was smashed inwards. Huge scratch marks inside looked like a large object smashed into the boat. Akira was about to speak when a very loud, rumbling horn resonated throughout the bay and parking lot.
"Sounds like a tanker; it's coming from behind Trinidad Head," one man said. A series of engine-throttling sounds radiated from the fog. Then a multitude of accelerating boats going full blast zoomed all around the bay erratically; several had their deckhouses, sterns and bows smashed inwards, some drenched with oil. Others were enveloped in a smoky fire; several of these boats rammed into each other. A few others collided with the rocky outcrops in the bay, caving in on themselves. One of the boats headed straight for the beach, hitting the sand and flipping over several times. Several people looking horribly injured crawled out and began limping for the parking lot. Several fishermen around Akira ran to assist them. Two of the wounded men fell to their sides and stopped moving. Another man dropped to their side and screamed, "GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE! IT'S COMING!" The loud horn sound echoed across the landscape again.
"Uncle, what the hell is going on?"
"WATCH OUT!"
Akira knocked Lance to the green fence; a boat fell out of the sky and smashed into the men next to him. Lance and Akira looked up into the fog. Boats flew above and past them, smashing into parked cars and panicking people. Car alarms were jolted on. Several cars began speeding out of the area; a huge tug boat flew out of thefog bank and collided with several of the cars, sending them flying into the hillside in an immense explosion.
"RUN TO THE TRUCK LANCE, COME ON!" Akira yelled out. They ran towards the Nissan. A crowd of people ran in front of them from the Seascapes Restaurant. Seconds later another boat from the fog smashed into several crowd members, then into the Nissan, pulverizing the front end.
"HOLY CRAP!" Lance shouted. "WE NEED TO MAKE A BREAK FOR THE ROAD!"
"I'VE GOT AN EMERGENCY BUNKER UNDER THE HOUSE! HEAD FOR THE BACKYARD!"Akira shouted back, tripping over the smashed metal and wooden bits of the boat. They ran threw debris and other panicking and screaming people. Akira looked to his left by the bathroom building; a yacht cave into its roof and numerous bodies poked out from the rubble.
They ran towards the road. A small stream of cars screeched out the parking lot, nearly running over Lance and made their way up the hill. Then a large tree fell out of the fog and crashed into the road, blocking the path and causing the drivers slam on their breaks, slamming into one another. They ran out. A small whistle sound, increasing in volume fast eminated behind them. Lance and several others turned their heads. Lance heaved Akira from the road and dived with him into a ditch in the bushes; a very large boat, barely missing Lance and Akira rolled into the car wreck and the people fleeing in terror. It spun several cars off the road and over the sandy bluffs into the other shoreline hundreds of feet away.
Akira peered out of the bushes, then at Lance. He motioned for Lance to move up the hill towards his backyard.
"LANCE, GET UP!"
Akira pulled Lance closer. He was unconscious, knocked out from the debris that flew over them. He began dragging Lance with all his strength up the small slope towards his home.
"Please Lance. Wake up!"
The loud horn boomed another time for several seconds before ending abruptly. Sounds of metal being ripped, torn apart and smashed against rock rippled in the fog over Trinidad Head.
Akira managed to pull Lance up to the backyard of his home; he noticed a small fire on his next-door neighbour's home. He looked back down into the parking lot area. The fog slightly dissipated, allowing a dark, misty look down below; the remains of boats littered all over the vista, smashed into the buildings and parked cars. Survivors were rebounding in multiple directions, several heading for the beaches past the wrecked shoreline boats and towards the trails leading uphill.
Akira then heard the sound of emergency sirens scream to his right doing down hill full blast; four police cruisers, one of them with George, three ambulances and two fire trucks. They came to a screeching halt, blocked by the mayhem below by the flipped yacht and downed tree in the middle of the road. They left their vehicles and rushed into the parking lot to help the survivors, pull the dead out and control the fires blossoming from the damage. Another spine-tinging series of metal warping and shearing echoed into the landscape from behind the hill, followed by several resonating explosions.
Akira fumbled his keys out of his pocket and unlocked the doors to his storm shelter in the ground; items were still littered on the floor from the earthquake earlier. Akira dragged Lance to the shelter. Suddenly a colossal explosion rocked the area, shattering windows and setting off car alarms across town. Akira almost fell down the small series of steps backwards, reaching his arm for the rail at the last moment. He could hear the screeching of car tires bolting down the street road; he looked outside the open doors. Behind Trinidad Head a huge column of black smoke towered into the atmosphere, followed by hundreds of fiery objects rocketing in a blazing rainstorm over the landscape, spiralling into the emergency responders and the surrounding neighbourhood. One fiery object passed over Akira's head and slammed into his home. He dove on top of Lance. The flaming object smashed through the windows and caught a portion of the house on fire. Oil droplets splattered all over the backyard in front of him, combusting from the sparks bouncing off the home.
Akira looked out again; the doors were stuck under a support beam; he was unable to move it and close them. He looked out again. A bright, bluish white light flashed blindingly from behind Trinidad Head, piercing the sunset-laden coloured sky and blanking out the visible views temporarily. Then a loud, gut-wrenching metal girder sound thundered from behind Trinidad Head.
"Oh my hell! What next?"
A gargantuan object crashed onto the top of Trinidad Head. Cloaked in smoke, fire and echoing the sound of torn metal hitting rock. The object pierced the fog; it was a massive oil tanker ship, numerous huge fires all over it, it's top bridge torn off, the middle of the ship ripped to shreds and huge volumes of oil gushing onto everything; it began rolling downhill fast.
It picked up speed horrifyingly quickly, knocking down trees and contaminating the landscape. It barrel-rolled over the survivors and first responders still in the parking lot, now rolling uphill towards Akira and the neighbourhood above.
"HOLY SHIT!"
Akira dropped down with the unconscious Lance; he saw the dark-red and black of the ship's torn metal hull take the stuck doors off the shelter and shatter the exterior concrete; crude oil splashed everywhere.
The ship continued rolling inland and stirring up the dense fog, bulldozing everything in sight: trees, houses, terrified residents fleeing and hiding, other emergency responders heading towards the chaos. Homes and buildings were swept off their foundations, pulverized and flattened. A huge explosion on one side of the ship ricocheted it at and angle, sending it further inland until finally sliding to its side, the bow caving in the Trinidad Holy Trinity Church and the stern wedged in the grass field behind Trinidad Elementary School nine hundred feet away. A large surge of crude oil gushed out in a thick tarry wave, pooling on the side of the tanker before it started to flow down the streets, catching fire and pulling loose debris and rubble.
Akira got up and pulled Lance against the wall.
"Lance! Lance, wake up. Please Lance, I need to make sure you are okay."
Still unconscious. He positioned him so he could breath easier. He moved him to a make-shift bed and closed him off in another room in the shelter, relatively clear of the heavy oil and smoldering smells. He checked the clock on the wall before leaving.
5:09 pm.
"We're alive. I can't believe we're alive after all that," he said choking on his breath, almost breaking down and crying. He drank from a bottled water and headed for the exposed entrance. He poked his head outside and gasped in dismay at the sights.
"Christ! It's hell on Earth."
The fog was coming in dense again, but Trinidad Head was smoldering away; huge fires and knocked over trees now marred this once beautiful coastal asset. Down below in the parking lot a massive blaze rose out of pools of crude oil; cars and bodies bobbed in the deathly horror.
Akira looked to his right at the road; a rapidly moving river of fiery oil containing smashed cars, large chunks of debris and dozens of bodies rushed down hill, flowing along the steep gradient. The remains of the yacht and emergency vehicles flattened by the oil tanker down the road burst into flames.
A gargantuan bellowing noise rocked the harbor. Roaring. Intense growling and thunderous booms started getting louder. They were gritty, almost organic sounding.
"That bellow...those roars," he said terrified and shaking. A caldron of memoirs repressed began amassing and resurfacing again.
Akira looked to the left side of Trinidad Head; what looked like a row of jagged spikes as tall as large evergreen conifers disappeared into the fog.
Immense booms muffled by waves grew even louder and clearer. Thunderous growling reverberated off the hills again.
"This...this is just a dream; just another of those bad dreams!"
In the far distance by the pier, a colossal dark shadow the size of a big hill appeared within the dense hazy fog. A huge tail swung from out the fog and smashed the pier, the whole structure of splattering into woody pieces in the boiling oil pools, casting instant fuel for brighter and more intense raging infernos down below.
"No...no. It's impossible!" Akira staggered to his side on the oily lawn.
The upright moving mass, charcoal-grey in color made its way through the devastated parking lot scene, resonating footsteps rocking the landscape even harder. Akira looked down: massive clawed feet, partially visible in the smoke-belching inferno.
He looked upwards. Huge jagged rows of spines on its back, the center few the biggest, sliced through the heavy veil of black plumes and fog like a hot knife through butter. Their disturbances created rolling disturbances, a wave of particulate-laden air circulating around the moving mass. The dark figure's height partly exceeded the three-hundred and sixty foot high point of Trinidad Head.
"IT CAN'T BE!"
An extremely long, scaly serpent-like tail swivelled and swayed back and forth, fanning the flames. It slammed into the bay waters, creating large waves rolling into the smoldering wreckage, the water never once choking the fires back.
It's upper torso rotated in Akira's direction; huge muscular arms swung by its side, the lower arms and hands tucked along its tight, streamlined abdomen under a puffed-out chest.
Akira looked further upwards. Puffs of air blasted out of its nostrils, disturbing a large column of fog around what looked like a dragon-like head. Its face looked in Akira's direction.
"Those eyes..." Akira stuttered to himself, shaking and yet frozen in place on the oily lawn surface, the noxious fumes not having any effect anymore.
Its eyes burnt a brilliant amber, vaguely glowing in the plumes of smoke and hazy surroundings. The amber coloured eyes focussed on the hillside, staring down at Akira.
The old man rubbed his sore watery eyes, a croak in his throat impeding his ability to talk for a moment. He coughed, then managed an uttering.
"It's you..."
The creature let out a wailing, horrible eardrum-popping roar. The sound waves vibrating Akira echoed everywhere and rattled everything. The standing, heavily damaged and burning wall behind Akira caved in on his demolished home, knocked down by the resonance.
It turned it's head towards the ocean and started for the beach on the other side of the parking lot. The body slowly assimilated and dissolved into the black smoke plumes, the dark twilight fog. The jagged spines were enveloped, followed by the tail waving in the air before it to vanished out of sight. A low, rumbling bellow came from the fog. The sound of shoreline waters being ruffled quickly subsided.
Akira, weak, stiff and unable to move fought with all his will to struggle into the shelter with Lance. He couldn't budge; not a single muscle was willing to grant him any form of mobility. Falling layers of ash dainty settled on Akira's body. Consciousness of the visible twilight fog faded, blackness advancing in his mind. A dwindling grip on reality anchored his last conscious thoughts. Akira gurgled out part of a word, before blacking out completely.
"-G-dzi-la."