The Giants of Shattered Swamp

by Eddie Patin

  Something happened in the room suddenly.

  The screen of Chad’s laptop blinked for just an instant, then went back to normal, showing a little window of Melinda talking about global warming and everything else. But Chad felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up, and was suddenly aware of an extremely low-frequency hum in his ears. A low drone vibrated in his bones. The young man looked down at his right arm and saw his arm-hair slowly standing up, charged with static electricity. Looking over at the news team’s table, he saw the water in Melinda’s water bottle vibrating, creating tiny concentric rings, ripple after ripple...

  Must be an insane amount of power for this portal, he thought, looking back to the camera’s display.

  “Whoa,” Melinda said suddenly, interrupting herself and recovering with a flashing smile. “Something’s happening! It looks like the portal’s going to be opening very soon! As you can see, the scientists are working very hard and are very focused! Now, there’s ... a deep hum in the air, and I can feel a lot of static. Is this normal?” she asked, looking off to the side. “Is this supposed to be happening?”

  Freudenstein ignored her, raising the volume of his voice to counteract the rumbling hum.

  “Phase two holding?” he asked sharply, looking down the room at the portal.

  Chad looked at the portal too. It was still an empty metal ring. He still saw the blue concrete wall on the other side.

  “Phase two holding!” one man shouted. “All levels nominal!”

  “Let’s make history, gentlemen,” the director exclaimed. “Open it!”

  Chad saw the scientist’s gaunt features tighten with excitement, then, he looked down at the portal to watch...

  “Sounds like...” Melinda shouted to the camera, raising her voice as if reporting inside a storm, holding her earpiece with one hand, “Here we go. It seems they’re opening—”

  There was a sudden explosion.

  Like a massive thunderclap sundering the air in the room, the sound made Chad’s head reel with the concussive force of whatever just happened around Portal Zero.

  Chad felt himself instinctively drop down to the floor, raising his hands to protect his head, and for an instant, all he could see was Melinda and all of the scientists reacting in the same way as a gust of wind blew through the room.

  And then, there was only darkness...

  2 - Arthur Kline

  Colorado Springs, CO

  “Yeah, I’m just getting home now,” Arthur said into his cellphone as he pulled up to the house.

  “Okay, honey,” his wife replied in his ear. “We should be back in time to watch a few episodes before the kids go to bed.”

  “Sounds good,” the man said, turning the key off in the ignition and pressing on the parking brake.

  An obnoxious female voice said something in his wife’s background.

  “Mom says hi,” Sheryl said.

  “Hiiii,” Arthur said unenthusiastically, stepping down from his truck. “Okay, I’ll see you later.”

  “Okay, love you,” she said.

  “Love you too,” he said with a smile, then hit the lock button on his phone as she hung up, slipping the device back into his cargo pocket. Arthur deftly slung his keys around in his fingers until his truck key was hanging, done for the day, and his house key was ready for action.

  Arthur Kline approached his house with weary steps, his steel-toed boots feeling extra-heavy. He stomped off the job-site mud left over on his soles onto the concrete as he walked. In one hand, he carried his lunch bag and water bottle, both now empty.

  He wanted nothing more than to get out of his clothes and get a beer...

  Slipping the key into the deadbolt lock, Arthur tried to unlock the door, but failed. He jiggled the key once, twice, and eventually finagled it open.

  “Damn lock,” he muttered, stepping inside. It was getting worse every day, it seemed. One of these days very soon, he’d have to stop at Wal-Mart or something on the way home and get a new set of locks and keys for the house.

  Putting his work stuff on the dining room table, Arthur headed upstairs and into his bedroom.

  Sheryl had left her side of the bed unmade. He smiled to himself and shook his head, approaching his side of the bed and working to unhook the paddle holster from his belt. Once the hooks let go, he put his holstered Glock 19 onto the dresser then changed into some sweats. With a quick look at the bathroom mirror, Arthur smoothed out his thick, dark blonde beard and ran a brush through his mane of hair, matted from wearing a hardhat all day.

  Samson the cat lay on the bed, curled up in Sheryl’s messy blankets. The feline raised his head, looking up at Arthur with a fanged smile and his eyes mostly closed. Arthur reached out and scratched the orange cat’s head, then folded his pants, leaving his keys, extra magazine, and other gear attached.

  Slipping into some sandals, he headed straight to the kitchen, to the fridge, and grabbed a bottle of IPA. Pulling the bottle opener off of the fridge door, Arthur opened the beer with a hiss and took a hearty draught, flooding his mouth with cold, hoppy goodness...

  “Aaaah...” he said, turning to look at the kitchen.

  There was a plate of food on the counter, covered with the Microwave’s splatter guard.

  Walking up, beer in one hand, he pulled the impromptu cover off of the plate.

  Steak. And a side of the kids’ mac and cheese with some extra cheese melted on top. It wasn't steaming with heat anymore, but the meal was still far from cold. Sheryl had cooked him a steak before leaving to have dinner with her parents with the boys.

  He smiled.

  “Awesome,” Arthur said to himself. “Thanks, Sheryl...”

  He put the beer on the counter and pulled out his cellphone, immediately navigating to his long-running text with his wife.

  He started to type with his finger on the touch-screen.

  “Found the steak. :) Thanks bab—”

  A sudden thunderclap suddenly split the air, shaking the walls and slamming Arthur with a surge of adrenaline! The lights in the house went out. Arthur was cast into darkness and dropped his phone to the floor...

  “What the fuck?!” he cried.

  Did a transformer blow up nearby or something? He wondered.

  Must be really damned close.

  So loud...

  The dim light of the darkening evening glowed through the closed blinds of the kitchen. Arthur staggered over to the window and pulled open a crack of blinds with a trembling hand. The neighborhood was totally dark.

  Yep. Power outage. Damn.

  Arthur reached down and picked up his phone. He pressed the unlock button so he could finish his text.

  It was dead.

  Did it reset itself? he thought, holding down the lock key to make the phone turn on again. He held the button down for several seconds.

  Nothing.

  He tried again, holding the button down for a while. If the phone was jolted into turning off, this should at least turn it back on...

  Nothing.

  The phone was dead.

  Weird, Arthur thought, pulling open the battery case. He pulled out the battery, put it back in, closed everything up again, then tried to turn the phone on...

  It didn’t respond.

  Instinctively thinking to smell the phone, Arthur lifted it up to his nose and could detect the faint odor of singed electronics.

  “Killed my phone?” he asked the empty room.

  The silence of a house completely without electricity answered him. The fridge was off. The furnace was off. All of the normal droning sounds of domestic life—gone. The cool quiet of the house was spooky, and Arthur stood still for a moment before shrugging. Then, he made his way back toward the steak...

  Click-click.

  Nothing.

  This flashlight was also dead.

  “What the hell happened to all of the electronics?” Arthur said to himself in the dark. So far he’d tried three different flashlights stashed around the hou
se. The penlight he kept on his belt was dead, and he had just changed the batteries on that thing. The flashlight stashed in the lower bathroom wasn’t working, and the handheld gun light he kept next to the bed was dead as well.

  Stumbling through the darkness of his bedroom on his wife’s side of the bed, Arthur found a couple of candles on her night stand. Then, he stumbled back around the bed and retrieved a cigarette lighter from his pants on the floor.

  It had been over an hour since the power went out, and he was wondering what was happening at his in-laws’ place. What was his family doing? Were they experiencing the same outage over there?

  If Sheryl tried to call his dead phone, she’d go straight to voicemail. She’d probably know that his phone was off for whatever reason.

  The urge to make sure that his family was okay hit the man like a ton of bricks...

  Arthur shook his head.

  They’re probably fine, he thought. They’re having dinner with Seth and Maggie. Maggie’s probably being pushy with Sheryl’s parenting. Sheryl’s probably smiling and biting her lip. Little Justin is probably resisting eating whatever food doesn’t have cheese or butter on it. Maggie is probably threatening her grandson that he won’t get desert unless he finishes his food. Seth is probably sitting at the head of the table, drinking his wine and staying out of it...

  At any rate, they’d still be back in ... maybe an hour?

  Hopefully, he thought.

  Once Arthur had the faint, golden light of a lit candle, he started gathering other candles from around the house. If his flashlights were all dead for some reason, he could at least go with good old-fashioned fire. He thought back to his parents, who'd always kept oil lamps stashed here and there for power outages.

  Arthur hadn’t touched an oil lamp in years.

  Once he'd gathered several unlit candles together on the dining room table, Arthur checked his wristwatch. How long had it been? Sheryl and the kids should have gotten back from dinner by now, shouldn’t they?

  Dead. His Casio’s digital display was blank.

  What in the hell is going on? He thought.

  Arthur looked outside the living room window at the dark neighborhood. He saw the glow of candlelight in the windows of a couple of houses across the street. Idly stroking his beard with a free hand while he stared out of the window, Arthur figured that he had been home for somewhere between ... two and three hours?

  Heading upstairs, he dressed himself in his day clothes again, strapped on his concealed Glock, and pulled his keys off of his belt. Grabbing a fleece jacket, he blew out the single candle he was using for light, stepped outside into the crisp night air, and locked the front door behind him.

  Everything was so quiet...

  The wind blew through the trees. It was the beginning of April, and Colorado was just starting to warm up again, but the crazy weather here still flirted with storms and the idea of winter. Arthur never really thought about all of the road noise he normally heard; the constant drone of the city in the background of daily life. His little neighborhood circle was pretty isolated, but it was still close to a few streets that always made noise. Montebello was close, and Academy Blvd wasn’t too far away.

  But the night was quiet like ... being up in the mountains...

  The only sound was the movement of the wind in the trees.

  Arthur walked down the concrete pathway, his footsteps louder than he expected, and unlocked his truck. Climbing up into the seat, he put his key into the ignition and tried to start the vehicle.

  The truck’s starter turned over and over, but nothing happened.

  “What?” he said.

  He tried it again. Cranking the key, the starter turned, whining loudly, over and over, over and over, but the engine didn’t catch on.

  Arthur stopped, pulled the key from the ignition. He lay back, head on the seat.

  “So,” he said to himself, “the battery is okay, but ... the ... what?!” Arthur sighed. It didn’t make sense. If the battery was okay, why wasn’t the truck starting? “What the fuck?”

  He sat up, put the key back into the ignition, and cranked over and over again.

  What kind of power outage kills phones, flashlights, and cars? he thought.

  Arthur left the truck, locking it behind him, and went back inside, struggling with the front door’s deadbolt a little on the way in.

  “Stupid lock...”

  So he couldn’t call Sheryl, and he couldn’t drive there. He couldn’t call a cab—he couldn’t do anything! He could—what—walk there maybe? He could take his old mountain bike. It was hanging up in the garage...

  This was not good.

  If Sheryl and the kids were experiencing the same kind of outage...

  He had to make sure they were okay.

  But how?

  Relax, Arthur thought. There was no need to get worked up about it. Sheryl’s parents lived all the way over on Dublin. That part of the city was probably fine. If a transformer blew over here, it was probably just his circle, maybe some of the streets around it.

  But the night is so quiet, he thought. Shouldn’t he be able to hear the sound of cars on the street outside of the outage?

  Should he take the bike?

  Wait longer?

  It was probably ... eight o’clock? Nine?

  Probably better to wait, he thought. Sheryl was likely on her way back already.

  Arthur lit his single candle from before and made his way down to the TV room.

  He looked at the couch, but didn’t want to get settled in just yet...

  If there was nothing left to do but wait, he could at least make sure that when he found Sheryl and the boys again, they’d at least be prepared to deal with the power outage if it lasted longer than a few hours...

  Over the next hour or so, Arthur carefully made his way through the dark house, gathering the saved old milk jugs full of water from the basement, extra blankets and fleece throws, old flashlights and batteries stashed in his outdoor gear and backpacks—anything he could think of that they might need—and stacked it all on the table next to the cluster of unlit candles he’d already put together.

  A little more satisfied, and feeling a little better about trying to do something, Arthur walked back downstairs to the TV room.

  The little candle on the coffee table burned with a tiny flame, drooping and leaking hot wax from a crevice in the side.

  Pulling his Glock out of its holster and setting it on the end table, Arthur sat down, sinking into the leather couch, and settled in to wait...

  He was cold.

  Arthur opened his eyes, shivering madly.

  Daylight pushed its way through the closed blinds and curtains, and he could see the steam of his breath in the air.

  Arthur was still in the TV Room.

  Wearing his normal clothes, boots up on the coffee table and arms clenched together, Arthur's body shivered to warm itself under just the fleece jacket...

  “Wha—?” he started, his mouth trembling and his teeth suddenly clattering together.

  With great effort, Arthur moved his body, pulling his stiff legs off of the coffee table and finding his feet under him. Vigorously rubbing his hands together, he struggled to stand, then rubbed his arms.

  The power was still off.

  It was morning.

  He’d slept in.

  Where were Sheryl and the boys?!

  Arthur’s joints popped and creaked as he got moving, trying to warm himself up, and he took some shaky steps toward the stairs back to the front room. He stopped, turned, grabbed his pistol, and put the weapon back into its holster, taking great care because he realized that his hands were shaking from the cold.

  Unlocking the front door and stepping out into the bright, chilly morning, Arthur tried to start the truck again.

  It was still the same.

  The starter turned, the battery was still strong, but the engine just wouldn’t start.

  Looking around the neighborhood, the str
eets were quiet, and several fireplaces showed thin plumes of smoke.

  Yeah, he thought. Everyone was inside trying to stay warm. No electricity. No heat.

  The sun was low in the sky, but dawn was definitely behind him. Normally, Arthur woke up to his alarm at five and was up and heading to work before sunrise.

  “Even the alarm clock,” he said to himself. It was battery-powered. “Huh.”

  He looked at Gill’s house, his neighbor next door.

  All quiet on the outside.

  What was that kooky dude doing? Was he even home? Gill always kept that SUV of his inside the garage, so there was no way to tell.

  No lights, of course. No smoke.

  Arthur went back inside and stepped into his garage from the kitchen.

  That’s it, he thought. He had to make sure; had to help his family get home.

  Arthur pulled down the old black mountain bike. Somehow, he’d managed to hang onto the same old bike he'd owned since his teenage years. That bicycle had been through his twenties, back when he used to go biking all over Colorado’s mountain trails, and all through when he was a teenager, riding it to high school. Back then, he'd called it The Black Dragon. It was an old Schwinn. Now, Arthur was thirty-two and had a family with two small boys. He worked ten to twelve hours a day, running equipment for Heavy Tracks Construction, and his old bike just ... hung in the garage.

  With the help of another candle, Arthur swept all of the dust and spider webs out of the gears and off of the seat and handlebars, found a pump, and filled up the tires, which were low and floppy.

  Taking the bike outside through the front door—no power meant no working garage door—Arthur locked the deadbolt behind him, checked the retention of his holster, and hopped up onto the bicycle’s seat. The man pushed down on the pedal with his lead foot for the first time in a long time.

  His stomach grumbled, but he ignored it. Gliding out past the driveway and onto the open street, Arthur started making his wobbly way toward the exit from his neighborhood circle, adjusting the bike’s gears as he went until he found a comfortable balance of power. He shook his head a little as he faced into the wind of his own movement, feeling his hair and beard flow with the breeze.