The Giant Smugglers Read online

  Charlie finally found his breath and let out a high-pitched yell.

  The giant put his free index finger over his lips in the universal sign to “keep quiet.” The gesture, surprisingly human, shocked Charlie into silence.

  He still was desperate to escape. But pushing against the monstrous fingers was useless. His captor had to be at least twenty feet tall and probably twenty times as strong as Charlie. He forced himself to check out the giant’s face, which was dotted with the soft black stubble of a guy who was old enough to shave but hadn’t gotten around to it yet. His wild hair was pretty crazy-looking, thrusting every which way. Was he wearing a toga? He looked like an overgrown, emo caveman.

  The giant cocked his head to the side. “Hi.”

  The greeting surprised Charlie almost as much as the fact that he was being held in a huge fist. Whatever the giant was up to, he didn’t seem threatening. “Hi?” Charlie responded. “You … speak English?”

  The giant’s lips parted into a smile, revealing an unattractive set of yellowed, neglected teeth. His breath smelled like a combination of fish and oatmeal.

  Charlie had taken a trip to Crazytown. Giants didn’t exist, let alone live across the street. He spat over the side of the giant’s hand, just to test reality. Splat. Yep, it sounded real. There he was, twenty feet in the air.

  “Think you could put me down?”

  The giant lowered Charlie to the floor and loosened his grip. Charlie’s first instinct was to run, but just as he hit the floor, his phone went off. The ring tone, thumping dance music, echoed in the warehouse. Charlie did a double-take as the giant pumped his fist in the air and bobbed his head to the beat.

  The screen said the call was from Charlie’s mom, probably checking in on him. Charlie silenced it, and the giant held out his hands as if to say, “You just killed my jam!”

  “Who are you?”

  The giant stared back, unwilling or unable to give an answer. Apparently, the English only went so far.

  “I’m Charlie,” the boy managed, now 90 percent convinced that the giant wasn’t going to eat him.

  “Ch-ch-charlie?” the giant stuttered, trying to pronounce the unfamiliar name.

  “That’s right, Charlie.”

  Then both their heads jerked in the direction of a loud crack from out in the hallway. Someone was coming.

  A beam of bright light snapped on in the hallway. The giant nudged Charlie into the dark of the elevator shaft. The giant held his index finger to his lips once more and signaled for the boy to stay put. Sounds of heavy footsteps mixed with an accelerating skitter of claws on concrete as the ominous light bounced toward them. A German shepherd bounded into the main room of the warehouse, tail wagging.

  “Powder!” chuckled the giant. Shielding Charlie’s position in the elevator shaft, the giant bent down low and held out his enormous right hand. Powder licked the tip of his huge finger, still red and sore from the pinch at the silo.

  The beam of light disappeared just before a flashlight clanked on the old table. The silver-bearded old man in his leather duster coat hobbled into the moonlight. Charlie edged deeper into the darkness of the elevator shaft.

  “Welcome to your new digs,” said the old man. “For a little while anyway.” He pulled up the splintery chair and collapsed into it. “People in town couldn’t care less about this place, but don’t push it. I can’t be around all the time, and there’s not much I can do to keep you in here. But remember, this isn’t just about you—there’s your family and others to think about. You’ll see them soon. Sitting around in here’s no picnic, but you’ll just have to make the best of it.”

  Powder raised her nose in the air and sniffed. Then she turned toward the elevator shaft and seemed to stare right at Charlie in the darkness. He thought he was a goner for sure and held his breath.

  The giant intervened. He bent down to one knee and scratched her head with a colossal finger. The dog flopped onto her back so her belly could be rubbed. “Powder stay?”

  “You two, together? No thanks,” the man grumbled. “Best thing you could do during your time here is rest up. You’ll need it for the next leg of your trip.”

  The giant nodded his head and yawned an outsize yawn, letting the old man know it was time to go. Charlie smirked. It sure looked like the giant was playing the guy, the same way Charlie played his mom when he wanted to sneak in a few more Total Turbo races.

  “All right, we’re taking the dump truck back. Don’t expect to see much of us when it’s light out. Not worth the risk.” The old man hobbled away, dog at his heel. “We’ll be back with some breakfast before the sun comes up.”

  “Okay, Hank.”

  The giant waited until the sound of a door shutting echoed down the long hallway outside the room. “Charlie!” The boy tiptoed out of his hiding spot—the coast was clear. “Secret!”

  “Dude.” Charlie held up his fist for the giant to bump. The big guy looked down, confused by the gesture. Charlie bumped his own two fists together to show him how, then offered his up again. The giant grinned and dropped his huge paw down in front of Charlie, who bumped it hard. “Yeah! Like that! That means we’re cool.”

  “Cool?” the giant said, trying out the expression.

  Charlie’s phone buzzed again. This time, there was a text from his mom:

  Be home in 5. Expecting to see some empty boxes.

  He knew she wasn’t kidding. There’d be heck to pay if he hadn’t touched the boxes, and he was off somewhere else on a school night. It wasn’t like he could tell her about the giant—she’d think he was nuts. Or worse, she’d want to come over and investigate. He had to go—he didn’t have a choice. Finally something had happened in Richland Center. He’d just stumbled into the weirdest, most fantastic thing of his life, and he had to unpack moving boxes.

  Unbelievable.

  The giant was on his hands and knees, trying to get a better look at Charlie’s glowing phone. The boy stuffed it into his pocket. “I’m really sorry, but I got to go.”

  The giant’s face sagged.

  “But I live right across the street.” He gestured toward the apartment. “So I’ll be back. Tomorrow. First thing.”

  The giant sat back against the wall. “Cool,” he said, showing off his new word.

  Charlie took one last look at the most unbelievable person he’d ever met and waved. Then he ran as fast as he could back down the hallway, squirted through the window, and dashed back across Church Street. His mom’s boyfriend’s truck was nowhere to be seen, which meant she wasn’t home yet. Pansy was back on her stoop, like nothing unusual had happened. Charlie let her in, threw some food in her bowl, and rocketed up the steps to his apartment.

  He just got the back door open when the headlights of DJ’s Hummer curved into the driveway. He rushed into his room, hit the lights, and hightailed it under the covers, clothes still on.

  It wasn’t long before, predictably, his mom peered around the door to check on him. Charlie’s eyes were closed in his best imitation of deep sleep.

  “Charlie.” She sighed, disappointed. Boxes were still all over the floor. He’d hear about it in the morning.

  But it didn’t matter. The moment he fist-bumped an actual freaking giant was burned into his brain.

  His mom closed his door for the night.

  Charlie slid off the bed and over to his bedroom window. From there, he could see the top of the warehouse. An approaching truck’s lights climbed up the front of the building, illuminating the slit windows near the roofline.

  That’s when Charlie saw the giant staring at him. The big guy winked. And even though the boy was pretty sure the giant couldn’t see him, Charlie winked back.

  Now that he was over the initial shock of what he’d seen, questions raced in Charlie’s mind like speeding cars in Total Turbo. What was a giant doing in Richland Center, of all places? Were there more out there like him? And who was the old man with the dog? The giant had called him Hank.

  Cha
rlie was going back in that warehouse first thing the next morning to find some answers.

  3

  The sun peeked over the vast gravel pit atop Quarry Hill as a piercing siren wailed. The surrounding hillsides were still green, but it was green on the run. In another month the trees would explode with fall colors before every trace of foliage fell and was lost until spring.

  Below, at the base of the steep hill, an industrial white van sped toward the rock-strewn pit. The two scientists inside the vehicle ignored the dying siren.

  A battered tin sign stood at the entrance to the quarry: ALL VISITORS MUST CHECK IN AT OFFICE. “Head for the silo,” said Dr. Sean Fitzgibbons, ignoring the warning. It had been a long time since he had allowed rules to get in the way of what he wanted.

  The doctor was about forty years old, with broad shoulders and a strong, arrogant chin. He double-checked their position using a GPS app on his phone, then leaned out his window to survey the quarry. It looked deserted, just as he’d hoped. “Let’s go over this one more time. If we find our giant, we tag it and get out of here. No engagement. That’s not our area of expertise, and we don’t want to attract attention. The Stick will handle the rough stuff.”

  The driver, Neil Barton, was younger than Fitzgibbons by ten years and heavier by at least thirty pounds. Squinting in the early morning sun through a pair of smudged, wire-rimmed glasses, Barton zipped the van right past a rusting office trailer, a weigh scale, and additional warning signs. “Why is he called the Stick, anyway?”

  “He’s the kind of man who solves problems one way. And talking isn’t the way.”

  Atop a blasted-away section of hillside across the quarry, the old man in the leather duster frowned. He watched the van snake around the gravel piles, crushing red plastic cups from the previous night’s party. Powder stood at his heel. She followed the van’s journey with wary eyes.

  Reaching into his duster with a steady left hand, the old man pulled out a detonator. The dull metallic trim was scuffed and scratched. He rested his thumb on a lone toggle switch, mostly bronze because all the chrome had long since worn away. It sat in the middle of the controls beneath a stub antenna and red button.

  He squinted to make out a green logo imprinted on the van’s rear doors. Everyone in town knew the Accelerton symbol, a double helix that formed the stem of a leaf. The multinational conglomerate had an agribusiness arm that controlled nearly all of the local fertilizer and seed market.

  The van continued toward the vine-covered silo. Powder let out a low growl. The old man’s thumb twitched against the detonator’s switch, but he pulled it back, spitting into the dirt and slipping the metal box back inside his waist pocket. He turned to his dog. Her black ears shot up.

  “Powder,” he commanded. “Go say ‘Hi.’”

  Powder didn’t need to be told twice. She exploded from her perch on the hilltop, kicking up a cloud of dust as she darted toward the silo. The old man winced as he began the rocky descent toward the quarry’s trailer office.

  The van pulled up next to the silo. Barton grabbed a metal case off the seat and hurried out of the vehicle, his shirt already wet with anxious sweat. He peered up at the battered old building’s dome.

  Fitzgibbons swiped his phone to call up a grainy, black-and-white satellite photo. He compared it side by side with the actual silo, weather-beaten and leaning just a bit to the right. It was the same building, but there was a crucial difference: in the picture, four huge, oblong shapes pushed up the silo’s dome. They looked like immense fingers.

  “The place is sure big enough,” Barton said. He couldn’t wait to see a giant up close for the first time but was a little frightened by the idea as well. He dropped the metal case on the ground, opened it, and reached for the custom rifle inside. It fired a tiny device that could be tracked anywhere in the world.

  “Hold on,” commanded Fitzgibbons, peering over his shoulder back toward the office trailer. “Let me scan it before you bring that out into the open.” He closed the photo app with a finger swipe, then opened another labeled WiVi. He held up his phone as if he were shooting video of the silo. Using a satellite signal, the app penetrated the walls and allowed a blurry view of the structure’s interior, like an ultrasound searching for an unborn baby. Fitzgibbons let loose a frustrated sigh. “There’s nothing here. It’s empty. We’re late again.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me. That picture is from ten forty-two last night!” Barton slammed the case shut. “It was just here! Where could it go?”

  “Whoever’s helping the giants is shrewd.” Fitzgibbons drew in a breath of the country air, heavy with the earthy smell of manure. He took in the small, tilled field a short distance away. “We already knew they’re moved all the time. We just need to find where.” He circled the silo’s exterior. “Chin up. You were right about Richland Center; it appears to be on the giants’ route, and that’s something.”

  “What will we tell Gourmand?”

  “I’m not concerned about her right now.” Fitzgibbons pulled a small flashlight from his pocket. “I’m going to take a look inside the silo. And you,” he said, pointing to the field, “put that case away and grab some soil samples.”

  “What good is dirt?” Barton grumbled. He returned the metallic case to the van and grabbed two soil collectors. Then he trod out to the field with the vials and pushed them into the black, fertile earth.

  Ten yards away, Fitzgibbons inspected a small, ground-level discharge door at the base of the silo. He donned a pair of latex gloves, got down on his knees, and pushed his flashlight through the swinging door. After he squeezed through the opening, the steel door clanked shut behind him.

  Fitzgibbons stood and brushed decades-old silage from his knees. He shined his light here and there, finding nothing but dust floating in the air. A careful sweep of the ground revealed four Spring Green city limit signs, dented and discarded. The signs were too big to have come in through the silage door.

  His flashlight explored the walls, finding mossy growth on the mortar where water had seeped in between concrete blocks. Then he noticed an uneven spot at the edge of the silo’s half-cylinder dome.

  The block had been chipped and torn away. Fitzgibbons called up the aerial photo on his phone again; the damaged area corresponded with the location of the giant fingers in the picture. He searched along the walls for a ladder to get a better look. No luck. Not done yet, Fitzgibbons probed further with his flashlight.

  The light settled on a small pile of chipped concrete that had fallen from the top edge of the silo. He got on his knees, sorting and sifting through the rubble before coming across a crescent-moon sliver of opaque, colorless material. The discovery measured about six inches long and perhaps three quarters of an inch at its widest point. Its lead edge was rounded, relatively smooth and uniform, while the opposite side was jagged in spots, as if it had been torn off. It appeared to Fitzgibbons that he had found a very large piece of fingernail. He pumped his fist, an old gesture of triumph from his track-and-field days. Then he removed tweezers from a kit in his jacket, gripped the discovery, and dropped it into a sample bag.

  The swinging door made a rusty squeak, and Fitzgibbons spun around. The beam of his flashlight met the hostile eyes of a German shepherd. The beast snarled, exposing a mouthful of sharp teeth. A deep, throaty growl swirled in the silo as she advanced.

  Fitzgibbons put the sample ahead of his own safety, securing the bag in his jacket before retreating to his left. The menacing dog closed the distance between the two of them. He put his back to the silo wall and slid along, block by block, toward the door.

  When he arrived, Fitzgibbons couldn’t bring himself to get down on the ground to scuttle through the door. He’d be defenseless. But then reason stepped in, and he chided himself. The dog hadn’t attacked because she wasn’t supposed to. Fitzgibbons was relieved—he was being herded. It was time to find the dog’s master.

  “Have it your way,” he said, dropping to his knees and passin
g through the opening. As he did, he felt the German shepherd clack her teeth at his heels for good measure.

  Outside, his eyes strained against the bright September morning before he saw Barton cowering inside the van. Evidently, the dog had done her job with him as well. Fitzgibbons was calm and deliberate as he made his way to the vehicle, despite the aggressive snout prodding at his ankles. When Fitzgibbons reached the van and opened the passenger door, the animal barked twice and bolted past him inside.

  Barton panicked, slamming up hard against the driver’s-side door. But the dog didn’t attack. She settled between the two front seats and narrowed her eyes at Barton, who fumbled for the door handle.

  “I’m certain if that dog meant you harm, she would have torn your leg off by now,” Fitzgibbons said, though the words did little to reassure his partner. The scientist checked the inside pocket of his jacket to make sure the sample he’d collected remained secure then hoisted himself up into the passenger seat. With an emphatic slam of the door, he trapped the dog inside the van. “Let’s go.”

  Barton’s hand shook as he found the ignition key and turned it. He pulled away from the silo, his eyes bouncing from the road to the dog, which was poking a suspicious snout into his right leg. When the van hit a bump and lurched, the dog gave a sharp bark. Barton recoiled, jerking his foot off the accelerator.

  “Keep your foot steady on the gas. Head back the way we came.”

  Barton retraced the route he had taken through the quarry. As the van turned past the office trailer, an old man in a duster jacket strode into its path. He held up his hand for the van to stop, glaring into the cab through the dusty windshield. The dog recognized her master, and her tail smacked Barton’s thigh with a steady thump-thump-thump.

  Barton’s fingers twitched on the steering wheel. “Should I go around him?”

  “This is where the dog gets off,” said Fitzgibbons. “Let’s have a word.”

  Barton brought the van to a stop. The old man approached the passenger side and slid open the side cargo door.