The Giant Smugglers Read online

  Charlie flinched. “What did you tell her?”

  “Said we were on a date, of course,” said Adele, laughing. “You think I was going to rat you out?”

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you. I totally should have texted you. I owe you big-time.”

  Bruce spun and practiced a high kick. The boy turned away so he could talk without distractions.

  “Thing is, she talked to my mom, too, and I had to cover,” Adele confessed.

  “Whoa. What did you say?”

  “Told her we’re going to the outdoor tonight to see Total Turbo: The Movie!”

  “A movie?”

  “Movie!” exclaimed the giant. Charlie smacked him in the leg to shut him up.

  Adele’s voice got shy. “So what do you say we go, maybe? Then everything’s cool all around.”

  Did Adele Hawkins just ask me out?

  “Charlie? You still there?” Adele asked. “You in or what?”

  Bruce had a goofy smirk on his face as he mouthed, “Movie!”

  “I … do want to go,” Charlie managed. “But, I’m kind of hung up with what I got going right now.…”

  “I thought you owed me big-time,” Adele said. “No worries. I’ll make up something to tell my mom.”

  “Go,” Bruce urged.

  Going to the movie would make things right with both Adele and his mom. He wouldn’t have lied after all. And the giant seemed for it. “Wait!” The words tumbled out of Charlie’s mouth. “I’d love to go. To the movie. I mean, yeah, I’ll go see Total Turbo with you.”

  “Sweet,” said Adele, the warmth back in her voice. “I mean, okay. Great.”

  “I’m … going to have to meet you there,” Charlie said.

  “My mom’s headed out that way to the grocery store anyhow. Sure you don’t want us to pick you up?”

  Charlie turned away from the elated giant. “No, I’ll meet you there.”

  “Awesome. Later.”

  “Later.”

  Bruce got loud again as soon as Charlie pocketed his phone. “Movie!”

  “Yes, I’m going to a movie,” Charlie said. It was a long haul out to the Starlite 14, even on a bike. To make it there before the previews, he needed to get going and soon. “But, don’t worry—I’ll sneak back in here after it’s over.”

  Bruce thumped his chest with his fist. “Go!”

  “Whoa, you go to a movie?” asked Charlie. “There’s no way. Somebody would see you for sure.”

  Bruce pointed behind Charlie. The boy spun around. He didn’t see anything. When he turned back, the giant was gone. It was impossible!

  Charlie searched the shadows. Even though the warehouse had grown dark, it was unimaginable that someone twenty-some feet tall could conceal himself so well. “Okay, okay. You are officially the world’s biggest ninja. C’mon, Bruce.” But the giant had vanished. Charlie wheeled around.

  And there was Bruce, right behind him, smiling like he’d just won a bet.

  Charlie jumped. “Holy crap! How’d you learn to do that?”

  “Hunting.”

  “Ah, I get it. If you didn’t learn to hide and move quietly, animals would know you were coming from a mile away.”

  “Movie,” Bruce agreed.

  “Boy, I don’t know.” Charlie admitted to himself that the big guy could basically disappear when he needed to, but still. “You could stay hidden the whole time?”

  “Yep!”

  “I sure wouldn’t want to be stuck in here by myself,” Charlie said, his voice warming to the idea. Based on the old man’s previous visits, Charlie calculated they’d need to be back before eleven. “We should be able to sneak back in here before Hank shows up.”

  “Go!”

  Charlie laughed. “Okay, let’s do it.”

  Bruce crouched down, scooped up the boy, and scooted into the elevator shaft.

  “Hold on, big guy. How are you going to climb out while you’re holding me?” Charlie asked.

  Bruce bent his knees and launched skyward. It took all of Charlie’s will not to scream as the bricks of the elevator shaft blurred past. The leap propelled them out the top of the shaft and into the night. They plummeted into the alley, where Bruce landed in nimble silence, his massive frame melting into the shadows of the tall oak Charlie had climbed that morning.

  “Wow, you pretty much killed that,” he said, swatting a leafy branch away from his face. Charlie took a moment for his stomach to settle—he wasn’t used to traveling by giant. Now there were directions to consider. “I’ll tell you where to go, okay? When we have to turn, I’ll go like this…”

  Charlie held his right arm out. Bruce turned to the right. Charlie extended his left arm, and Bruce shifted back to his original position. Well, the turn signals work, thought Charlie, remembering how DJ showed off the new custom blinkers he installed on the Hummer. His mom’s boyfriend would freak if he saw what Charlie was driving.

  Charlie’s eyebrows knit together as he drew a mental map. He stuck his thumb up and motioned skyward. Bruce held Charlie aloft so that his head peeked just above the warehouse.

  The Starlite 14 drive-in theater was on the southeast edge of Richland Center, four or five miles away if they followed Church Street right out of town. That was the most direct way to go, but it would be too strenuous a test of Bruce’s ninja skills when the road became Highway 14, with nothing but the stacks of Donovan Dairies and Dewey Zumach’s Dugout Bar to shield them from view.

  Charlie checked out Tower Hill overlooking the town. The woods there ran more or less parallel to Highway 14. They would provide a general route that would take them close to the drive-in unseen. “There’s where we should start. Can you get us there, you know, secret?”

  Bruce lifted his head to get a better look. “Yep.”

  “Okay, big fella,” Charlie said, pounding the giant’s fist with his own. “Let’s do this thing.”

  With his back to the warehouse, Bruce edged along in the dark until he came to the front of the building. A big semi rumbled down Church Street toward them. Charlie held his breath. The truck’s lights fell just short of Bruce’s bare feet. Bruce let the rig thunder a block away before he chanced a peek around the corner. There wasn’t a soul in either direction. Bruce winked at Charlie.

  And then they were running down Seminary Street—really, really fast.

  Charlie had once been dumb enough to ride alone with Tim right after he got his driver’s license. He was supposed to be going to Ed’s Family Foods for a pound of flour, but Tim had driven to Highway JJ instead, the straightest road in all of Richland County. Out on JJ, Tim got his Thunderbird going 100 miles an hour, laughing his head off the whole time. It felt like warp speed. Charlie couldn’t believe they didn’t die.

  He figured they were going at least that fast as Bruce ate up the first block in two strides. The giant was high-stepping all the way, happy as anything to be out of the dank warehouse. He chose the darkest, most shadowy route possible among the trees, houses, and alleys of Richland Center. Night air rushed past Charlie’s face as they took a hard left toward the high bluff. Ahead, the lights on a parked car flashed, and Charlie jerked his arm hard to the right, hoping Bruce was paying attention.

  He was.

  The giant leaped into the air as the car door opened. An old woman got out, oblivious to the giant soaring high above her in the air. She lit a cigarette and never saw the giant’s foot touch down in a dark backyard two houses away. Unfortunately, he landed in a half-full kiddie pool. The giant lost both his balance and his grip on Charlie, whipping the boy high into the night sky.

  He reached the apex of his flight against a backdrop of stars and watched as Bruce managed to get a hand down and turn his slide into a miraculous cartwheel that landed him back on his feet. The graceful giant snatched Charlie out of the air before he fell five feet. He hadn’t even caught his breath yet when Bruce whispered into his ear, “Fun!”

  Charlie could have used a minute to get his stomach out of his thro
at, but Bruce was just getting started. He hurdled a garage and made another 100-mile-an-hour dash through wooded backyards. They reached Strickland Park at the base of Tower Hill in no time.

  “Okay, we’ll head for the tower with the blinking light. From there we just have to stay hidden along the tree line until we get to the movie.”

  Bruce had all the directions he needed. Charlie held on for dear life as the giant zipped across the hills, bounding and bouncing between trees like a halfback eluding tacklers. Whenever Bruce veered in the wrong direction, Charlie pointed him back the right way. They reached the top of the last hill, where the woods ended and the landscape morphed into grassy pasture. Beyond that lay the bright lights of the Starlite 14.

  How are we going to get in? wondered Charlie. It’s not like I can go up and pay for a giant. Then he remembered Tim bragging about sneaking into the drive-in. He’d parked the car on a side road and hopped the fence that surrounded the place. It looked to Charlie like he and Bruce could do the same thing. The hopping part sure wouldn’t be a problem.

  “Hold up.” He scoped out a line of scrubby trees behind the last row of cars and just inside the fence, planted there to keep road noise from interfering with the movies. Perfect. Bruce could see the screen from that spot, yet the trees were in a murky netherworld where the lights from cars passing on Highway 14 couldn’t reach.

  “Okay, that’s where you’re going to watch the movie. Think you can stay hidden in there?”

  “Yep.”

  “Cool.” Charlie pointed out an area in the back by the concession stand. “I’m going to watch from over there with Adele. You stay hidden until I come get you, deal?”

  “Deal.”

  “All right, let’s go watch a movie. You’re going to love this one.”

  The two snuck down from the hill, made it over a dark section of the fence, and hid in the trees. Bruce nestled himself in between the poplars so well that Charlie knew where to look and yet still couldn’t find him. He was ecstatic—their plan was working. He’d brought a giant to the movies, and no one had any idea. Part of him wanted to brag about it to Adele. But Bruce was a secret he didn’t want to risk telling to anyone.

  “Movie!” the giant whispered as pre-movie ads for local nail salons flashed on the screen.

  Charlie laughed. “This isn’t even the good part yet. I’ll meet you right here in a couple hours.” The giant held out his fist. Charlie bumped it and took off out of the trees.

  The smell of greasy hot dogs wafted through the air, and Bruce sniffed. He saw teenagers flipping burgers and brats at concession stand grills, and his stomach rumbled.

  15

  Dr. Fitzgibbons tapped the top of a whirring centrifuge, urging the cycle to yield a GGH test sample. Adrenaline and coffee made him sweat. He gave up and returned to his workstation to run another simulation. He leaned back in his chair as the program generated probabilities.

  Fitzgibbons closed his eyes and waited for results. Success was perhaps revolutions away. This innovation represented the next evolution of man, a bold new path for humanity to follow, with himself as its architect.

  Of course, his work would become that much easier when the Stick arrived to secure the giant and 500 pounds of raw giant growth hormone. The scientist would never again have to go through the machinations of synthesizing from a trace of skin tissue. The closer Fitzgibbons got to an actual giant, the more he wanted it.

  His computer chirped, and he checked the results of the latest simulation. Its predictions were discouraging. Even testing a minuscule amount of the GGH on a rat would likely be a waste. Best-case scenarios placed the odds against a rodent surviving at nine to one. Fitzgibbons dropped his head and cursed. He’d hoped to nail this version.

  “No improvement?” asked Barton, appearing behind Fitzgibbons.

  “Not much. The rat’s accelerated physiology is the problem. It won’t govern the growth rate.”

  “What’s the projection?”

  “Triple before growth becomes unsustainable.”

  “Well then.” Barton tapped his watch. “I say we show Gourmand what triple-size looks like, don’t you?”

  The doctor agreed. There was little to be gained waiting for the certainty of success. If the rat lived or died, what did they have to lose? Gourmand would see the potential, the rich forest through the trees. “Let’s see exactly what we’ve got.”

  He put on rubber gloves, then removed the GGH vial from the centrifuge. With a sterile syringe, he punctured the rubber top of the vial, decanting the precise amount. He repeated the process with a bottle of sodium chloride. He tapped the syringe as a shrill sound came from the skittering lab rats.

  Chee!

  Barton approached the metal cage and hovered over the bedlam. He was drawn to the smallest rodent, a dirty gray fellow only two-thirds the size of his brothers. The runt’s fur was tattered and bloody in spots where it had been bitten. Barton watched as a larger rat set its snout in the direction of the smallest one and lashed out.

  Chee! Chee! Chee!

  “Your runt days are over,” Barton said as he thrust his gloved hand through the top of the cage. He worked his way through the tangled mass and grabbed the abused rat. It didn’t make a sound when Barton placed it alone in a second Plexiglas cage. He put the box under his arm and hurried to the greenhouse portion of the lab.

  “Looks like your little friend was a goner either way,” noted Fitzgibbons as Barton joined him in the open space, the ceiling glowing with afternoon sunlight. Fitzgibbons used a phone app to activate cameras mounted at strategic locations along the ceiling that would capture every aspect of their experiment. “It might as well make history on its way out the door.”

  Fitzgibbons looked down at the pitiful rat on the bottom of the cage, its chest pumping away at a furious pace. He took hold of the creature, injected its neck, and set it down on the floor. Barton drew up close beside him, careful to not block the camera views. At first, the rat only twitched, its nostrils flaring to pull in as much air as they could. Gurgling sounds came from some haunted place deep within the rodent, and its pupils dilated. It spat a few droplets of blood.

  Then the rat started to grow.

  “Holy…” began Barton.

  The rat’s snout extended in unison with its extremities, expanding before the scientists’ eyes. But its torso lagged far behind. The uneven growth caused the rat considerable pain. It thrashed as the irregular expansion became more rapid.

  Cheeeeeeeeeeeee. The cry was lower and more guttural than before.

  “Dear God,” Barton marveled as the creature contorted and grew. “It’s incredible.”

  The rodent, wheezing in agony, struggled to its feet.

  Fitzgibbons readied two pairs of sizable forceps. “If it gets much bigger,” said the doctor, handing a tool to Barton, “we may need to restrain it.”

  The rat continued to grow in herky-jerky fashion, a hind leg expanding here, an ear doubling in size there. Its eyes swelled in their sockets, and the grotesque creature snarled at Barton.

  “Grab it!” Both men wielded their instruments to seize the rat, now the size of an angry tomcat, but it evaded them both and dashed for the main lab.

  Fitzgibbons and Barton chased after the creature, now flailing on the floor near its original cage. Its long tail lashed back and forth, whipping the men’s forearms as they struggled to get a hold on the beast with their forceps.

  “Grab it around the middle,” Fitzgibbons ordered, “while I get behind its head.”

  Barton tried his best, but the rat wouldn’t surrender. It snapped at him with its sharp mouthful of extended teeth. He brought all his considerable weight on the rat’s thick midsection to pin the creature. It resisted with all its might, thrashing side to side as Fitzgibbons struggled to get a better grip on its neck.

  The rat tore at Barton’s sleeve. He flinched, lost his forceps, then got to his feet and ran.

  “Get back here!” shouted Fitzgibbons.
/>   The rats in the first cage raised their snouts, smelling the danger in the air. They cowered in fear.

  The vicious giant-rat flipped the steel cage on its side and plunged its snout inside. Frightened chees rang out as rat blood splattered everywhere. The giant rodent ravaged all its bullies. Any rat that tried to get away got it even worse.

  Barton reappeared with the tranquilizer pistol. He raised the gun to fire, but just as suddenly as the giant-rat had struck, it stopped.

  The rodent, now six times its original size, reared up, then floundered to the ground. It battered its head again and again against a leg of the steel table before letting loose a horrific death screech.

  Then the rat shut its eyes for good.

  The lab, filled with gruesome sounds just moments earlier, was quiet. The scientists stood in the silence after the slaughter. They took in the grisly scene, a giant-rat dead on its back surrounded by the gory remains of a dozen normal-size ones.

  “I’ll alert Gourmand,” Fitzgibbons said, checking his phone to make sure the video cameras had done their job. “You take blood samples so we can start analysis.”

  His hand shook with exhilaration as he e-mailed Gourmand the video of the test. It had worked far better than his computer’s predictions. The analysis would reveal much, and his mind was already bursting with epigenetic modification ideas that could refine and stabilize the GGH.

  Someone banged on the steel door to the lab. Muffled, concerned voices called out from the other side. “Dr. Fitzgibbons! Are you men all right?”

  “We’re fine,” Barton shouted back.

  “As a matter of fact,” Fitzgibbons added, “we’re wonderful!”

  16

  Charlie strolled into the field lined with cars and pickups ready to watch Total Turbo: The Movie. He threw one last glance back at the line of trees and saw no sign of Bruce. Previews of coming attractions were just starting, and the crowd was glued to the screen. Charlie wondered if Adele’s mom had dropped her off yet. He pulled out his phone and texted her:

  where are u?