Smoke Break (LOTG) (Patreon)

*This is another scene inspired by the 70s TV show, Land of the Giants. if this turns into a proper world/story then as before, this isn’t canon. I’m just trying flesh out this short story to set the scene.*

At first glance the alley was quiet. Crickets chirped quietly and there was the occasional muffled engine of a car on the main road on the other side of the buildings as it rolled past. The noises of a Tuesday night in summer. A door swung open and a young woman slipped through it, pulling it behind her until it was open a crack. Just a sliver of dim light came from the interior. She was holding a pack of straights and swiftly pulled one out and lit it. She stood by an ashtray on the floor that nobody used, nudging it to the side with her shoe. It was a slow evening but she couldn’t leave the desk for long, you never knew if someone would come in. She took a long drag  of her cigarette, savouring the spread of the nicotine through her lungs, before exhaling slowly into the dark air, watching the smoke curl up into the air, backlit but the light above the door. She wasn’t sure what it was, but Sophia sensed that something was wrong.

*

This was their moment. Beverley broke from the cover of the bins and hauled herself up the concrete step that was over head height to her. She didn’t stop running until she reached the relative safety of the ashtray. The stark white ceramic towered above her like a castle wall but it gave her the best cover possible. She glanced nervously up at the giant, hoping that it had stopped kicking her cover around. She needed to be quick. They had to get in through the door before the giant finished her smoke. Where was that idiot Bogovich? She’d told him to run and they made their break at the same time. He was always slowing everyone down, moaning all the time. Oh here he was now, shaking like a leaf and white as a sheet.

“You could have helped me up that damn cliff.” He gasped

Any pity Beverley had for him evaporated. “If you thought that was a cliff we have a mountain to climb to get in through that door, now quick before she moves again.”

Beverley, pushed Bogovich in front of her and sprinted for the gap between the fast canvas trainers of the giant. Just as she did the feet moved and her legs nearly gave way in shock. She still wasn’t used to how something so large could move so fast. It felt like the world was falling on your head. Luckily it was just a shuffle, a change of weight, and the gap remained. After a running for an age they reached the step and started to climb. Just as she was reaching the top she felt the whoosh of air, and almost a change of gravity as the giant squatted down to stub out her cigarette. Beverley grabbed Bogovich by the arm and hauled him up roughly. They sprinted for the gap, which opened suddenly to huge proportions as the gigantic woman opened the door. Throwing themselves through the gap and as far away from the titanic feet as possible the two little people huddled up against the inside of the doorframe just as the gap closed and the door slammed behind them. Beverley felt her very bones shake. 

“This is what it would feel like if an ocean liner fell from the sky right next to you.” she whispered to the shaking scientist next to her, looking up to check if they had been spotted. He just groaned. The feet quickly vanished through another door, and the two little people were left in a store room alone, shaken but inside. Now to find Steve and the rest of the away party.