by Jerry Hart
As the camera got a closer look, the giant’s features became more pronounced. It looked to Owen like a giant naked man, but instead of being flesh-covered, he was blue and appeared to be made of stone. He was picking up a particularly huge piece of rubble and holding it over his head. He let out a piercing roar and hurled the rubble into the street, toward the cameraman. Suddenly, the video feed died.
CHAPTER 9
Otis Elfman noticed right away that something was wrong with his condo when he returned that morning. For one, the front door was ajar. For another, his TV was on. And to top it all off, one of his windows was open.
“I may be old,” he said to himself, “but I know damn well I didn’t do any of this before I left.”
Otis had just gotten back from a fishing trip with an old buddy, and he was too tired to deal with whatever was going on now. He put his tackle box down and searched his place.
This was the second strange event to happen to him inside of a week. The first had been the ham sandwich sitting on his kitchen counter the other day. Otis was sure he hadn’t made that sandwich. It had to have been that Daniel Hudson boy, Otis told himself. The boy had been acting all kinds of weird while standing in the hall. He’d kept casting glances inside the old man’s condo during their awkward conversation about a broken arm and tree houses.
Perhaps one of Daniel’s friends had snuck in while he distracted the old man, only to … what? Make a ham sandwich and leave it on the counter? For what purpose? Otis thought about questioning the young fellow himself but he’d seen the police tape hanging from Daniel’s door when he’d gotten back. Something had happened and Otis didn’t know what.
But it must have been bad.
Suddenly the condo shook. Otis grabbed the kitchen counter he was standing next to and looked over to his windows. A dark shadow passed over them. Through the open window he’d found when he got home he could hear a grinding, moaning noise coming from the large shape that walked—walked!—by.
Otis could barely see out through the blinds what it was, but he noticed a hint of blue.
* * *
Patrick watched along with the crowd as the giant blue monstrosity walked along Calhoun Street. He and the other officers had followed it from the field, powerless to stop it. It had made its way along the freeway before stepping off and settling down here, in downtown San Sebastian.
The blue man had to be at least twenty stories tall. The people of the city followed his progress along the streets, keeping a relatively safe distance from him. The sun was already rising, but it was bitingly cold outside. Patrick could see his breath in front of him; he was in the shadow of a large building at the end of the street.
The blue giant suddenly stopped in front of the garage that had been demolished the other night. The crowd stopped with it, staring up in amazement. Patrick continued to move, making his way through the wave of people to get to the front. He was still an officer of the law and had a job to do.
He had to get the people back.
Loud rumbling came from a block away, where the giant rummaged through the rubble. What was it doing? Patrick watched, taking in how oddly beautiful the creature looked in the shadow of the building behind it. The sun started to rise above it enough to shine down on the scene.
A news crew was right in front of Patrick, trying to report on the events unfolding. He couldn’t hear what they were saying into their microphones over the sounds the monster was making, and he didn’t stick around to listen. He pushed through the crowd (a lot of people were recording the events with cell phones or video cameras) and saw Lindsay a few feet ahead, trying to get people back. He moved onward.
“Fisher!” Lindsay screamed when she saw him, though she sounded excited. She reached out, took his hand and pulled him toward her. “This is nuts. What’s it doing?”
They looked at the blue beast as it continued to dig into the debris.
“Maybe it’s looking for something,” Patrick offered. As soon as he said it, though, the behemoth stopped rummaging, holding a large piece of concrete over its head. It looked down at the crowds surrounding it. There were people on either side of it on Calhoun, plus another group on 3rd Street directly across from the garage. The creature roared, low and deep. Patrick got the impression it was looking straight at him. The sun finally broke over the side of the building, directly behind the beast. It became an eerie silhouette, its shadow covering everyone.
Then it hurled the concrete block into the crowd. Everyone tried to run, but they were so tightly packed together, no one got anywhere. Patrick watched the block fly toward him and Lindsay. He grabbed her and the two of them fell straight to the street.
The block flew right past them (Patrick could hear the swoosh it made) and landed a few feet away with a horrendous thud. He and Lindsay looked and saw that a few people had been crushed by it.
The news crews were nowhere to be seen.
* * *
The blue giant started down 3rd Street. The crowd screamed and ran, trying to get out of its path. The monster didn’t even bother looking down at them. It stopped at the end of 3rd and Henderson Street and stared at the sky. It began making a high screeching noise. Nearby glass shattered at once.
The screeching call lasted only a few seconds. Everyone in the city stood still, watching, waiting for something else to happen. They were also ready to run.
And then, another screech broke the air, but it wasn’t coming from the blue monster. It was coming from somewhere else.
* * *
Nikki leaned over the sink to wash the dye from her hair. She grabbed a towel and wrapped it around her head. Finding a place for her and Darlington to stay had proved to be easier than she’d expected.
Allison, one of Nikki’s favorite clients, lived in a loft in downtown San Sebastian, and she lived alone. She’d just recently broken up with her boyfriend, so she was more than happy to fill the empty space with another person.
Suddenly Allison ran into the bathroom. “Nikki, you have got to see this,” she said breathlessly, combing her short red-and-black hair out of her eyes.
Nikki followed her back to the living room. On the TV was some extraordinary footage. A giant blue man was rummaging through some rubble. Nikki wondered what movie this was when suddenly she heard and felt a thud strike the earth in time with the actions on the screen. At the bottom read “Downtown Under Siege!”
Now that she was paying attention, she realized that she could hear a large number of people screaming outside the building. She looked out the window.
All the people in the street were looking in the same direction. Nikki followed their gaze and saw, for a brief second, the top of the blue man’s head over the roof of a building that was blocking it. Was this what she had seen at the park earlier? It had to be. How many giants were there in this world? Was it following her?
She turned to Darlington, who was sitting in a chair and staring blankly out the window. Nikki didn’t know exactly what was going on, but she had a feeling. A bad feeling.
This strange blue invader, whatever it was, was looking for something.
* * *
Owen was still standing in Cullen’s living room, mesmerized by what he was seeing on the news. Sidney had started crying, so Cullen and Vanessa had taken her back to her room to tend to her. Doug flipped through channels, trying to find another news station that was reporting on the events. Curtis had found a notepad and was sketching the blue giant they’d seen on TV. The sketch was actually very good, though it was only in black and white.
They had all heard the strange call coming from outside the house. Doug had insisted it was the other giant, the silver one that caused their car accident on the way here. He’d found another station that had broadcast the footage of the blue one making its own call, still in the heart of downtown, but Doug claimed it was too far away to hear that one. It had to be the other one.
Which meant it was a hell of a lot closer than before. Was it coming this way?
“They’re talking to each other,” Doug surmised as he watched the news. The reporter was mentioning the beast that attacked Baker earlier that morning. Now that it was day, they had gotten good footage of it. It was, indeed, a shiny silver giant.
Baker? Downtown?
The two places where the orb had been fully operated. That’s what Owen thought of when he’d heard the screeching call, the verbal exchange. They were looking for the orb, whatever they were. Owen kept it to himself, though. Curtis didn’t need another reason to hate the thing; he was already close to snatching it from Owen and destroying it with his bare hands.
These invaders had something to do with the orb, and Owen already knew he had a stake in it as well. They were all connected. The thought scared him more than anything.
And then he realized he’d left the orb in the car with D. He backed away, leaving Doug and Curtis to their obsessions.
Outside, the air was extremely cold. The sun was up but clouds were starting to form, obscuring it. Owen ran down the hilly front yard to the little car in the street. D was still sitting obediently in the front seat, powered down. The orb was on the floor in front of the robot. Owen opened the door, grabbed the backpack and slung it over his shoulders. He grabbed a blanket that was lying in the backseat and covered D with it.
“Sorry, my friend,” he said to D, “but I don’t think the Matthews family is ready to see something as crazy as you just yet. I’ll keep an eye on you while you sleep, though.”
He closed the door and headed back into the house, not aware that Vanessa was watching him from the living-room window.
* * *
Curtis continued to draw in the notepad. He had worked up to drawing the giant blue and silver beasts trampling cars, with helpless citizens running for their lives. It looked like a comic book, with dialogue bubbles and everything. All it lacked was color.
Doug went through many theories as to what was happening. He’d also come to the conclusion that the orb had something to do with everything, though it was only after Curtis had brought up how the silver monster had gone to the same place where he’d been attacked by the zombies in Baker.
“Owen,” Doug called, “you said those brothers first activated the orb on the top level of the garage, right?”
Owen nodded.
“And then you activated it at the park in Baker to distract the zombies so that Curtis and Nikki could escape. It has to be the orb those things are looking for. It has to be.”
“No one is arguing with you,” Owen said soothingly. He didn’t know how to handle this situation—he was afraid Curtis would try to take the orb away from him, and Owen couldn’t let that happen. He had to know where it came from and if his dad was involved like Nikki said he was.
Cullen and Vanessa were sitting at the other end of the couch from Curtis and Doug. Cullen had his arm around his wife, comforting her. Sidney was lying down for a nap. It was nearly eight in the morning now.
As Owen watched his childhood friend hold his wife, he noticed dark slashes on Cullen’s forearm. There were four of them. They looked like old scars.
Suddenly Vanessa looked over at Owen. Their eyes met for a brief moment, then Owen looked away. What he saw now wasn’t much better.
Curtis was looking straight at him. “You know what this means,” he said. It was not a question.
“We don’t know for a fact that’s what they’re after,” Owen protested.
“Come on,” Curtis nearly shouted. “Those monsters are at the two places that thing has been fully activated. Stop playing dumb and just give it to them.”
“Give what to them?” Cullen asked. Owen ignored him.
“Nikki said my dad made it. I have to find out what it really is.”
“Ask them,” Curtis said, pointing to the TV.
“Sure, I’ll just stroll up to them and say, ‘Hey, uh, who made this thing? And please don’t step on me.’”
Doug suppressed a laugh.
“What are you guys talking about?” Cullen asked forcefully. Curtis and Doug looked to him, then back at Owen.
Pulling the backpack off, Owen took the orb out and showed it to Cullen and Vanessa. The two of them stared at it with little interest.
“What is that—a bowling ball?” Vanessa asked.
“I wish,” Owen said, and put it back. He carried the backpack on his front now, as if he were holding a baby in a harness. He rested his arms on the pack and waited for more questions from the Matthews.
“So … it’s not a bowling ball?” Cullen asked.
“Very good,” Owen said with a grin.
“Do you know what it is?”
“Not a clue.”
“Do you know what it is?” Cullen asked Curtis.
“No, but I know what it does. That thing brings dead people back to life.”
Cullen’s gaze snapped back to Owen, waiting for confirmation. Owen immediately looked to Doug, who was watching TV, pretending not to listen and pretending not to remember his dead brother walking into Les’s house.
“I’m not just going to walk up to that thing. I mean, didn’t you see the way it killed those people like that?” Owen couldn’t get the image out of his mind. “It threw that block at them. It murdered them.”
“How many more people are you going to let die because you don’t want to return it?” Curtis asked.
“I’ll return it, if it’s what they are after. But they’re not going to tell me what it is. I know they won’t. There’s only one place where I can find out. Besides, look at it.” Owen pointed to the TV, where the blue monster was standing still and staring at the sky in the middle of downtown. “It’s not going anywhere soon.”
Curtis looked angrily to Cullen, as if hoping for backup, but got none from him. He then looked to Doug, but Doug was watching the TV (the president was addressing the world about the strange happenings going on in Texas) and doing his best not to get dragged into the argument.
Though Owen figured the aliens—or whatever—were here for the orb, he didn’t think they would provide the answers he wanted. They would just take it, and probably kill him just for having it. He felt deep down that he would find the answers at his house.
Owen felt he owed it to his dead friends to find out why they had lost their lives.
Don’t give it to them. The voice had returned, and it sounded worried. This was the first time Owen had heard from it since his trip to the condo.
CHAPTER 10
Owen was sitting at the dining table when Doug sought him out. Doug had grown tired of watching the news reports on Silver and Blue (the names he had given the giant beasts) and wanted, instead, to know about something else, something only Owen could tell him.
Owen was looking out the window over the sink, staring at the stormy sky. Doug sat down across from him.
“Mind if I ask you something?” he asked.
Owen shrugged, never breaking his gaze.
“Could you tell me about my brother?”
Now Owen looked at Doug, a confused expression on his face. “What do you mean?” he asked.
“Well, you lived with him for a while. You have to know something about him.”
“You lived with him for a lot longer. You should know more than me.”
Doug nodded. “I feel like I don’t know anything about him. I didn’t know he was building weapons in his condo. I didn’t know he built a robot. He never told me any of this stuff, and I was his brother.”
Doug had promised himself he wasn’t going to cry over this, and right now he wasn’t even close to doing so, but he wasn’t sure if he’d still be holding up at the end of this conversation. But he had to know more about Daniel. Nothing he’d seen over the past few hours added up to the boy he’d grown up with.
“Your brother was incredibly smart, and a hell of a softball player,” Owen said with a smile. “Those weapons you mentioned were built to help us fight monsters. He was a monster hunter, and a damned fine one at that.”
/>
A monster hunter? Never in Doug’s wildest dreams had he ever expected Daniel would become something like that. Daniel had always been a geek, constantly taking things apart and putting them back together again.
And then Doug, the total opposite, was kissing girls at an early age.
“Is it difficult, looking at me?” Doug asked Owen. “You just see Daniel, don’t you?”
“Not anymore,” Owen said. “When I look at his robot, I see Daniel. That’s why I call him Daniel.”
Owen smiled. Doug did not.
“Could you do me a favor?” Doug asked. “Don’t call that robot Daniel anymore.”
Owen stopped smiling. “Your brother worked very hard on him; it’s his baby. I was thinking it was a good way to honor his memory.”
“Every time you call him that, I’m reminded of the brother who isn’t here anymore, and will never be here again. You’re personifying a machine.”
Owen sat silent for a moment. Doug was angry, but he couldn’t quite grasp with whom he was angry.
“Okay, if that’s what you want…”
“Why did my brother show up at that house?”
Owen thought for a second, as if he were trying to be careful of his answer. “He was following the orb.”
“Does it bring people back to life?” Doug asked. “Why would someone build something like that?”
“I don’t think that’s what it was built for. I think that was just some weird side effect.”
“What do you mean?” Doug asked, more curious than angry now.
“Jason and Michael wanted to take over the world with this thing”—Owen pointed to the backpack in front of him—“and they needed me to power it for them, because, for some reason, I was the only one who knew how to operate it. I just didn’t know it.
“The orb has the power to control people’s minds. Your brother died very shortly before the orb started up. I think it somehow reanimated his brain. I felt his head churning back at Les’s house. It was still active somehow.