Giant Solidarity G/T

Chapter XXXIII. The Stortvann Vortex

Two images slipped into my memory banks before I recovered from that blow to the head. First, I saw dirt and leaves passing my face while I was dragged across the forest floor. The heels of my boots dug long trenches in the dirt behind me as Evan heaved me along. I couldn't make sense of any of the conversation around me before falling back unconscious. Next, I was aware of laying on my back on the ground. Blinking rapidly, I saw Evan's ample frame standing by the lakeside. I heard him say "Sumbitch destroyed my phone in a garbage disposal. I'll throw his in the fuckin lake." Just before the blackness reclaimed me, I saw him tossing my phone overhand into the water while someone laughed behind me. 

         Sometime later, a cascade of murky lake water splashing over my head woke me up entirely. Shaking fishy-smelling freshwater out of my face and hair, I ignored the palpitating headache. My new surroundings included the rocky shore of Lake Brobdingnag again, but this area was far more woodsy and remote than where we'd parked. Briefly attempting to stand, something cold pinched my wrist. I was handcuffed to some kind of a fencepost embedded in the ground. My bleary vision hadn't restored enough for me to investigate the purpose for this out-of-place wooden pole in the forest.

         "Rise and shine, bug-collector," a voice cooed in my ear. Evan stood over me holding the bucket he'd dumped over my head.

         I was kicked in the thigh and turned around to see Armstrong glaring down at me. I took relished pleasure seeing the angry scab protruding from beneath the bandage above his eye. Figures, the tobacco-sucking cop ruined it by speaking. "Mr. Goldfinger, you should be looking at serious jailtime for assaulting an officer with a deadly weapon." He tapped his swollen noggin and winced. "Since we're outside my jurisdiction here in Stortvann though, we'll have to uphold some swift, off-the-books justice."

         "Justice, dispensed by the Giants for the Roundup and Degradation of All Tiny-Folk," Troy predicated, standing behind the corrupt cop, drinking from a hipflask.

         "GRUDATs can't spell justice," I remarked, without a thought of the repercussion. "Miracle, you galoots remember your own acronym." This earned me a stomp on the kneecap from Armstrong's steel-toed boot. "Boys are keeping the sentencing low-profile," I said, looking around the wooded clearing, which was vacant except for the three GRUDATs and I. "I thought I'd come to and see a torchlit rally happening around me."

         A wet stream of nicotine juice grazed my face and chest as Armstrong spat on me. "Do you know where you are, Goldfinger?" asked the cop, pointing and forcibly turned my neck forty-five degrees with his free hand.

         At first glance, I thought I was looking at my own partially dug grave. However, the deep ditch along the forest treeline was far too large for a single giant gravesite. From the dryness of the soil filling the shallow trench, I could also deduce it had been dug for quite some time. This inverted patch of grassless soil was right behind the marker to which I was shackled. Half a dozen more fenceposts formed an outline around the circumference of the ditch. Although Armstrong's voice suggested I should be frightened by the sight of the hole, I was instead puzzled. "Is this a sinkhole?" I inquired, wearily.

         "Not a sinkhole," said Troy, pocketing his flask and resting a foot on the upward incline beside me. "This, best bud is an earthly portal, the Stortvann Vortex."

         "Vortex, what're you talking about?" I asked, regarding my frenemy with suspicion. Admittedly I had never laid eyes on a vortex to the tiny human home-world. But this couldn't be accurate. "Impossible, Continental Government monitors all the vortexes to the human realm in our world, day and night."

         "This one's uncharted," said Evan, lighting a cigarette and flicking the smoldering match toward my face.

         "Correct." Chief Armstrong proceeded to explain, his hand securely on his holstered baton. "Some of our GRUDAT brethren are in the park service. Recently, they discovered this much smaller outgrowth of the Northern Seaboard Vortex." He grimaced at me, with teeth that looked covered in gravy stains. "It's been a GRUDAT secret. That reminds me." He took a walkie-talkie from his belt and spoke into it.  "Armstrong to Ranger Fields. Got the other two Ranger, and if so what's your ETA?"