Giant Solidarity G/T

Chapter XXII. The Menagerie

"Really fucked up royally on this one, didn't I Har?" I exhaled and inhaled the smoky smell of burnt paper and wood. While Crystal, Rey and Alma kept their space from us upstairs helping out Daniel, Harley lit some kindling in his fireplace and opened the chimney hatch. Promptly, I had retrieved my briefcase and set the unfinished Long Piggy storyboards in my possession aflame. Episode two was to be titled Piggy Crashes the Peterson Picnic. Embers in the grate devoured an illustration of that man-eating swine's face before my teary eyes. This particular portrait showed Long Piggy grinning, with a female leg dripping with mustard sticking out from inside his snout, a high heel dangling off the flailing foot. It couldn't burn fast enough for me.

         "Mistakes happen Vic," said Harley, as supportive as he could muster. He patted my knee encouragingly. "Petra backed you into a corner. I don't know what the girls don't understand about that."

         "Still shouldn't have kept it from them," I took a swig of my beer from the cold sixer Harley brought out. "Sorry you got caught in the crossfire, Harley."

         "Eventually, Crystal and I would've had to address the Petra thing," Harley sighed. "Boss kidnapping your girlfriend, gagging her and locking her in a raccoon cage isn't really something a relationship can just move forward from."

         I groaned, watching the last of the papers and pictures in the fireplace curl into platinum-colored ashes. Sitting on the couch next to my equally despondent colleague, I pressed my temples with both hands. Perhaps I was hoping my brute behemoth strength would crush my cranium as easily as it could a tiny human skeleton. Letting out a shaky breath, I said "Dad told me since I was a child, "It's wrong if you have to lie to your giantess about it". River Styx rest his soul. My old man and his homespun wisdom could really lend a hand with this situation."

Above our heads, creaked footsteps of the lone Giant volunteer. Only Daniel was left looking after the humans. Kayla left around noon, before Seth, the next giant aide on the rotation even showed up to relieve her. Daniel allowed it, as the giantess Kayla hadn't slept at all the night before, however Seth had still not arrived at Harley's. According to scuttlebutt I had heard, this Seth kid was tardy a lot, due to working two fulltime jobs in addition to being a philanthropist. Harley and I were eager to lend Daniel some assistance but felt unwelcome up in the human infirmary. Rey dropkicking my hand was suitably clear on that. When the creaking from the second floor gave way to rapid thuds however, I looked up, as did Harley. A few loud shouts came next, and we exchanged glances.

         "What could that-?" I began to ask Harley but was promptly interrupted by my phone. It wasn't that she-devil Petra this time. My caller ID said Human Hotline. They were calling me from upstairs. Hesitantly, I picked up, taking a deep unsure breath. "Hello?"

         Rey's shrill voice cracked through the earpiece, sounding frantic. I pulled the phone from my ear but could still hear crackling from the volume. "Vic, help!" was all I could make out, but she fearfully begged me to come upstairs.

         With Harley right behind me, I ran up the carpeted stairs. Having overheard Rey's terrified screams on the phone too, Harley required no persuading. Mad as Crystal might have been at her giant boytoy, there was no denying the safety his eighty-nine-foot stature featured. Deep down, as male giants, I think we privately thought we could redeem ourselves from our mistake, taking on whatever endangered our ladies. There was a definite ruckus underway in that spare bedroom. Harley and I burst through the door and for the second time in two days, saw Daniel outspread on the floor. This time he wasn't knocked out by an intruder, but gasping for air, grasping at his throat swollen and blue. A few tiny humans were on his chest, frantically trying to help. Instantly, I recognized Rey's blonde and teal hair among them, at Daniel's neck. As I approached, Rey seemed to be trying to resuscitate Daniel. Even when she was smaller than a ragdoll, Reagan's nurse instincts remained unfaltering.